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You Tell us, Mommy and Daddy
she couldn’t carry the weight
 of the lack of loving
 she walked around with it on her back
 the heavy baggage in her sack
 she can’t believe what it’s becoming
 the complete lack of loving
 
 acting like you love them
 but an actor you are not
 the longer they stay
 the more they both pay
 their heartless “love in a knot
 boiling in a shallow pot
 
 we don’t want to see you suffer
 we don’t want to see you unhappy
 you tell us that it’s not our fault
 you tell us, mommy and daddy.
 
 three years have passed since you
 set free the wrecking ball
 know he knows another family
 that hasn’t been introduced to me
 sometimes I don’t want to think at all
 of how every night he would call
 
 three years have passed since you
 divided our home in two
 and now she’s looking for a job
 and I clean up after the slob
 she’s seeing other people, too
 though I don’t always know who
 
 both of them use up their phones
 talking with their new “friends”
 she’s behind a locked door, laughing
 and he goes to Alabama by cashing
 we don’t know what kind of feelings to send
 because we never expected to see the end
 
 we don’t want to see you suffer
 we don’t want to see you unhappy
 you tell us that it’s not our fault
 you tell us, mommy and daddy.
 
 she’s lost the weight that was on her
 and he’s moved to a new home
 I wish we could be together again
 but I guess our family is a has-been
 I go through feelings with a fine-tooth comb
 I wish those outsiders would go home
 
 we don’t want to see you suffer
 we don’t want to see you unhappy
 you tell us that it’s not our fault
 you tell us, mommy and daddy.
 
 we don’t know what kind of feelings to send
 because we never expected to see the end.

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This article has 3 comments.
the narrator is the kids. The whole thing is from the kids' point of view.
My mom was literally "carrying the weight" (she was bigger than she is now) and that was part of the "suffering" that i was talking about. We didn't want to see our parents fight and not get along. That was the first 2 lines of the chorus.
Could you explain who the narrator is in this poem? It seems like the first two stanzas are about the mom, but who says the chorus? It seems like the "we" is the parents and the "you" is by the kids?
I love how this poem follows the family through the divorce and the birth of new families and how the poem still treats this new life with skepticism, that you can't just move on.
My parents divorced a decade ago (I was 12) and I'm still reeling from the effects; I find there are some things I've snagged on and can't move on from.
