My father used to be a stranger
occupying the same four walls I sheltered in
Occasionally offering me a tea
But forgetting I don’t drink milk.

He introduced me to the feeling of rage.
A mechanical voice box goading chemical reactions,
My catalyst, if you will.

Now we drink oat lattes together
And swear to fill the silence,
But it’s comfortable.

And when he messing up acronyms,
I correct him.

I don't pretend to know why Eve ate the apple
but I know she's not the one who ****** us.

He created Her for Him.
A Marionett made on a whim, discarded.
The predesecor to the ****** Mother.
Mary, I'm so sorry.

I wonder who realised first their limbs had strings?  
A lamb and a shepard
Born for slaughter.

We were all daughters once.

I sat through sermons week in, week out,
never a doubt about where I was meant to fit.
Meek
Mild
Submissive
Mother

I wonder what my daughters opinion is on having never been born.

I stopped reading the bible before I could discover the word for a Childless Mother but I'm pretty sure it's Women.
What does that make me.

When I eat an apple,
I like to cut it into slices and eat each segment individually.  
I'll throw away the seeds, nibble at the core, discard the skin.
We were told she took a bite
but I often wonder just how Eve committed her sin
and what is taste like.

I do not begrudge Eve the apple.
I begrudge Adam the audactiy to ask for a partner in suffering.

I believe my brother will grow to hurt,
to hit,
to lash out when he can't reach the words he needs.
I believe he will grow to silence as he has been silenced
And to intimidate as he was intimidated.
Loved, yes.
But loathed more.
When the money runs out love is stunted.
It can't buy happiness
but it sure helps feed the hunger,
And no one can argue being deprived of affection isn't a sort of gut wrenching starvation.

There's an ache in his eyes,
an emptiness,
and a promise that whatever fills it will hurt as he has.
He, who doesnt understand the difference between freedom and power,
Who longs for both having tasted neither
but like the starved will blindly accept either.
He is like my mother - lost.
All the lost are fearful,
and most of the fearful are violent.

I wish to keep the wishbone within the body,
Not snap apart a life under the guise of luck.
Collect lost pennies, not lives,
You evil murdering *****.

I sit in silence with my mother because how am I meant to say the roots of everything I despise about myself lie at her feet?
That I've learnt to refuse to let her make me feel shame and guilt for eating?
That to this day I look at my body and hear the echos of insults she hurled at eight year old me about the
fat on my hips,
their dips and dimples?
That my partners hands caress that same flesh
and she kisses away my hatred?

I sit in silence with my mother because she doesn't talk, she shouts
out of anger at the cage she's in.
And in her volume I hear the echos of everything she's been unable to achieve,
all her hopes and dreams cruches by pre-conceived ideas of femininity and society's prying eye?
Can never ask why she allowed herself to be chained, and silenced.
Why her present is only half the shadow of her past.

I sit in silence with my mother because how can I say everything I take pride in is what she hates most about me?
That my sexuality is not a choice, but I've chosen that label and I treasure it?
That femininity to me is hair where I can see it,
swearing when people can hear,
and unapoligetically taking up space others would rather I vacate?
That my rejection of faith isn't a reflection of her,
but rather proof she raised someone who learnt to challenge before they accept?
That I'm strong and resiliant

but still soft around the edge?

A repeated feat, just as dusk lusts for dawn:
Nights blend seemlessly with the days they seek.
Infatuation to the greatest degree
because if it was love, they'd have found a way to suceed.
Sun would share the sky with stars,
a liminal space split in half.
The ultimate comprimise for exisiting.  
When will the missing them dull to an ache I can bare?
or is this the price?
Would the abscene of pain simply mean the abscene of them?
because if so,
I'd rather dispare in the knowledge that just like the dawn,
I'm cursed to an eternity one step before them,
forever casting shadows.