Not My Intention

Carefree childhood days
School activities, sleep-overs with friends
Mom in the kitchen baking cookies
That was the life you two had

Mom and Dad would fight,
But it would be alright in the end
Life would go on,
Pictures smiling reassuringly from the walls

Then one day it all changed
Mom and dad fell apart
Tears and rage
And pictures taken down

I’m sorry, my darling girls
I didn’t mean to put you in the middle
To disrupt your life
To make you grow up so fast

It was an unintentional consequence
Of my necessary escape
I ask your forgiveness