My family shattered from our limp frame.

A home, tumbling with sadness, unaware, 

and incapable of change for never finding what held us together.


My father always told me that

our mother’s stories were all we needed to visit the dead.

They echo in my heart for the shattered shavings I’ve shed.


I still watch the same sitcoms we laughed at together.

I know he hears me when my laughter breaks shadows

because when I’m alive, he’s alive.


I’m the serendipity of the morning day

and the laugh track of sitcoms from the 90s.

when I smile, his jokes ring in my ear for the umpteenth time.


Daddy carried a sadness about him.

In between his laughter and positivity,

I crouched as a proud daughter.


He taught me so much about how

not to be a selfish person

how to give love and properly receive it.


His rainy days never damped the world around him.

In his world, what he saw animated his face

but what he felt shed light on us.


Daddy never made me feel like our house wasn’t a home,

and my father never failed to remind me I wasn’t shattered,

even when I watched him break right in front of me.


* * * 

Camilla Tecsy is an English major and aspiring writer who recently aged-out of the U.S. foster care system. Camilla shares her story in the upcoming documentary film “Family Rewritten,” which is the third film in a series of documentary short films about the foster care.

You can learn more about the film series at the links below:
Family Rewritten:
My Identity:
Feeling Wanted: