Fake it.

The thing i hate most about families is meal times. Pretending. Sitting down to dinner with blank faces and wide eyes wondering who'll be the first to say something to spark off the next fight. Pretending you are part of a stable family when really it's nothing of the sort.

Your parents cheat on each other. Sitting idley like you don't know, you couldn't know, But you do. All the while thinking they are saving you the pain they would willingly cause you if people wouldn't label them bad parents. They don't know what you think of them. You couldn't care less. They stopped loving you long before they stopped loving each other.

Your mother, sat in the chair she sits in every time you sit down to eat. Pitying other families she considers less fortunate because "My Daughter would never be stupid enough to do drugs", "My daughter would never cheat on her boyfriend", "My daughter would never sleep with someone she'd just met", "My daughter would never be with a woman". Shows how much Mother's know their Daughters, She never knows, because she never asks, because she never cares.

The worst thing about meal times is acctuall pretending you like your parents. Don't aruge, remain silent and stare blankly into the face of your Father while he tells you another boring story about how many miles of snow he walked through that year the world ended. Parents staring proudly at the children they have successfully kept alive these long years. Proud of themselves, not the children. All the while not knowing the children they brought up are only ashamed by the excuse they have for parents.

My dad finishes his tea. He barks at someone to take his plate to the kitchen. Someone does, they always do. He tells another story about something "funny" that happened at work. When no one laughs he stands up and tells everyone to go to hell because he doesn't know why he bothers. Neither do we.

My mother tells us she loves us, when she doesn't. She loves the idea of us. A lawyer, a doctor, an arcitecht, a nurse, a teacher. What we could become if only "we put our minds to it". Not what we are. She doesn't love us, she loves our idle potential.

My brother, the victim in this entire farce. Sits and smiles at the TV while he eats his fish fingers and smiley faces. The innocence he carries. Soon he'll realise. Soon he'll not get the grade, Soon he'll meet a girl they don't like, Soon he'll steal something, just once, but once enough. Soon he'll realise that no matter how hard he tried when he was younger he's not what they want. Sitting by ignorant to the cruel judgment awating him in only a few short years. Ignorant and Blissful. Innocent and Blissful.

Sooner or later we'll all realise we're just not what "they" want.

Cruel, Harsh life.