This week’s first line:
My parents are not generous, with money or affection.
Expectations are low
Father works away
Mother is ill,
Spends her days in bed
Says she is ill unable to cope
We kids run wild, except for me
I care for her
Run errands
Feed her meals of milky slop.
My father’s home on weekends
Collapses in his chair
Says leave me alone, I’m too tired to play.
Mother staggers from her nest
Feigns interest in him and us.
He falls asleep until Sunday night
Packs his bag and away he goes.
Mother retires to her bed
The cycle begins again.
I shop and buy the chocolates she craves
Two-minute noodles for the kids and I.
My parents don’t know generosity,
They never received what they cannot give.
Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/first-line-friday-june-23rd-2017/
Morpethroad 
A sad tale Michael, one quite familiar with a couple of the foster kids that came into my care.
Thanks Di there are some sad scenarios
That last line rings oh so true…hard to give what you never received.
This a sad poem b/c this boy has to give up his childhood to be the parent and mentor in the family. He does not get to play or have a life of his own but he us the parent. Your last line really struck me about the parents and the kids eating those 2 min noodles all the time. No one showed them how to be generous or was generous to them, so they are not generous to their own family. It makes me sad, this cycle of poverty and carelessness continueing. You understand why the parents are how they are from their background, but they can still make a choice to change and be different but they don’t, it’s too much effort, well written