I wrote this poem in July of 2022.

Cochran street was supposed to be our bright new start in a new country
naive immigrants we all were thinking america would accept us
thinking our family would have our back
instead my parents were exploited and me and my siblings
were treated like indentured servants-
we never talk about how the toxic it all was

or the trauma it brought or how we tried to fit in a country
where we were squares in a peg holes
and how dad fell further into his addiction and depression
and we don’t talk about any of this because dirty laundry
is never aired out in public