You are the youngest child; You will always be alone.

My fear of abandonment started when I was born.

I never smiled much as a child.

You didn’t ask to be born but you’re here. And you can’t tell if you love it or hate it. You are supposedly a blessing, A new addition to the household. But your cries are met with almost indifference.

The novelty of it all is gone. The miracle of childbirth has been performed before. There’s no more magic or wonder. So you find yourself working extra hard, trying to do things no one else has. So that they can be surprised by something at least. Enchanted by you even if just for a moment.

And so they call you the attention seeker. But it isn’t your fault. You’ll fade into the background if you don’t stand out somehow. You just yearn for eyes to be upon you; you want to teach them how to see again. They’ve long since stopped.

Your parents cannot parent you because they’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a child like you. One that requires constant attention and care. One that is watched intently and trained diligently. The kind of child your siblings were, the kind of child you’ll never be.

You parent yourself, you must.

And then there’s the sibling that wanted you so desperately. Only they don’t like you when you come. They don’t really care for you. they liked the idea of you, not you. They cannot parent you either, they do not know how. Once they tire of you, they retreat, they leave you to your parents. Except your parents were tired of you before you even came.

So they spoil you because they do not have the strength for much else. It is easier than training you. And you love it at first - the special treatment. Until you realize your siblings resent you for it and your parents’ expectations contradict their actions. They spoil you instead of training you and when the time comes, they expect you to be trained, not spoiled.

You will always be left out. They will never understand you and you will never understand them, because you are not old enough. There will be conversations they will not have with you, a lot of times about you, because you are not old enough. But you will never be old enough. The older you get, the higher the age requirement.

You will always be a child to them. You will never be allowed to make your own decisions, but you will be expected to. They will go on and on about your immaturity but deny you any opportunity to show just how much you’ve matured. And you must always be better.

You must break every record that has ever been set before you. You are not allowed mediocrity, not even for one second. You must be exceptional. Your siblings will hate you for this, but it will be even worse for you if it is not this way.

You do not have the luxury of making mistakes others have made. You learn from experiences that are not your own and your first time offences are treated as repeated ones. Nothing begins with you.

You are an extension of everyone that has come before you. You are the dreams they could never achieve. Your job is to fulfil their desired destinies before yours. You will spend your life chasing after things they want, attaining heights they could never reach, entering rooms they had no right to.

And when you’ve lived their dream lives, when you want to live yours, you may find there’s nothing left of you. You have never been your own person, always theirs.

You spend your years in solitude. Everyone moves on and leaves you behind. First at home, then in life. The same way they will when they leave the earth. For that is the prayer of us all; that the young bury the old. It would be a tragedy if it was the other way.

While you my dear youngest, will live alone and die alone.

As you always have been.