Excavating fear

What drove you?
Was it the fear
that you would never be enough
for your mother?
If I excavate the ruins,
will I find her
blonde face
in the dust of your despair?
The ruins of our failure.

My own fear
that I was never enough for my father
haunts me
stands like a shadow at the door
a monster under the bed
roots me to the floor
paralyzed
I should change the sheets,
but cannot turn the page.

our fears so deeply buried
lines of code
like DNA
they spell out
run
run
run