I don't know when I began to resent you. Perhaps it was when you left me in my grandmother's care, making me grow up without the maternal presence I should have had. Perhaps it was when you gave me a younger brother, placing a responsibility upon my shoulders that I had never asked to bear. Or perhaps it was the countless instances in which you neglected me so effortlessly, while I remained silent, unable to bring myself to hold you accountable. You provide me with food, shelter, and everything I could possibly need to survive. And perhaps that's precisely why I feel so guilty for wanting more. How long am I expected to keep needing without ever being allowed to want? I've conditioned myself to believe that asking for anything beyond the bare necessities is selfish, that I should be grateful simply because I'm provided for. But I'm suffocating beneath the weight of everything I'm expected to understand and silently endure.