Forced Isolation

Forced Isolation

One thing I learned at my father's knee
Was to keep quiet, never to plea.
The secrets I kept, created alone.
No normal connections, learned skills just not known.

My mother enforced the don't tell it rule.
She had her own secrets but I always knew.
As I grew older, I could not connect,
The sense of not belonging ran deeply unchecked.

Now it's too late, social skills are not mine.
I pretend to be normal, albeit benign.
I don't see the holidays as family connect time.
The decorating the laughter, I can't shake the crime.

I never reach out, to be two or three
If anyone offers, I do tend to flee.
I don't miss a closeness that I never had
I do regret not knowing, just a tiny bit sad.

I see normal mothers, daughters, and friends.
Wondering what that feels like, I can't comprehend.
The laughter, the sharing is so strange to me,
I don't understand it, probably, never to see.