Give It Back

What if the weight you’ve been carrying
was never yours to begin with?

What if the reason you can’t move forward
is because you’ve been walking in circles,
mistaking survival
for a destination?

You’ve been eating from everybody’s plate.

Your mother’s bad choices.
Your father’s shame.
Your siblings’ responsibilities.
Your partner’s pain.

Their fears.
Their mistakes.
Their disappointments.

One by one,
they placed their plates in front of you,
and because you loved them,
because they were family,
because somebody had to hold it together

you ate.

You swallowed things
you never ordered.

Bitterness.
Guilt.
Embarrassment.
Responsibility.
Rejection.
Silence.

You carried your mother’s choices
like somehow they were yours to answer for.

You became responsible
for her children,
your siblings,
learning to worry about lives
you did not create
as though their survival
had somehow become your assignment.

You carried the shame
of a father’s actions
you had no part in.

Felt embarrassment
for choices you never made,
lowered your head
for things your hands never touched,
and somehow learned
to carry his name
like an apology.

And still,

you ate.

You ate your partner’s pain,
thinking love meant
making room inside yourself
for everything
they couldn’t carry.

You kept eating
because somewhere along the way,
you learned that love meant
finishing what other people
couldn’t stomach.

And slowly,

their food became like poison to you.

Until one morning
you looked into the mirror
and the woman staring back
felt like a stranger.

Her smile didn’t fit anymore.

Her body felt borrowed.

Her mind was tired
before the day even began.

Her head hurt.
Her back ached.
Her neck carried knots
made from years of holding up
people who never even noticed
she was bending.

Small things became mountains.

Getting out of bed.
Answering the phone.
Washing the dishes.
Taking a shower.

Existing.

And you wondered,

What happened to me?

But maybe
nothing happened to you.

Maybe you’ve simply spent
too many years
digesting pain
that belonged to someone else.

Maybe healing isn’t about
learning how to carry the weight of everyone else’s burdens with ease.

Maybe healing is realizing that

You were never supposed
to carry it at all.

So give it back.

You can love your mother
without cleaning up every mess
her decisions leave behind.

Give her children back
the responsibility
for becoming who they choose to become.

You can love your siblings
without becoming responsible
for saving them.

Give your father back
the shame of his actions.

You did not make his choices.

You do not owe the world
an apology for them.

His mistakes
do not belong to you.

Give your partner back
the pain you keep trying
to love out of them.

Give everyone
their plate.

Not because you hate them.

Not because you don’t care.

But because loving someone
does not require
poisoning yourself
to keep them full.

You have spent enough years
surviving on other people’s pain.

You do not have to finish
their plate.

You do not have to carry
what they refuse to put down.

You do not have to become sick
just to prove
that you love them.

Their mistakes are theirs.

Their pain is theirs.

Their healing is theirs.

Their plate
is theirs.

And yours?

Yours has been sitting there,

untouched,

waiting for you
this whole time.

So stop accepting their food

And finally

Eat from your own plate.