help me i am
 
                  d
                  e
                  k
       h        o
            o

from the way
you laugh to
the movement
of your hands
when you tell
a story. i do
not want to be
with anyone
else.

Because you were busy I got no birthday card
It's not the first time so I won't take it hard
Because you were busy I was alone Mother's Day
But I know you have so much to do anyway
Because you were busy I stayed home alone
You didn't have time to pick up the phone

I know life is crazy and you just have a minute
But does even one thought in your head have me in it?
I'm getting older and I'm scared that I'm sick
But I'd sure like a visit, no matter how quick

Because you were busy those hours have passed
You're beginning to realize how you've put me last
But time is a runaway train on a track
And it's something that we never, ever get back

Now you remember to bring me bouquets
And you always visit on bright, sunny days
You talk to me and I wish I could reply
But listening's all you can do when you die
I hope that you somehow know I understand
My leaving was something that you never planned
And I hear as you whisper while I lie in the ground...
"I am so sorry, Mom, that I wasn't around".

being a mother
is not about
making bread
and dinner every night

being a mother is about trying to understand
and not gossiping to your friends about my bad choices when i broke up with the boy who
i decided
was not right for me

and believing me
when i told you
that i had an eating disorder
that my brothers constant jokes about my weight had not helped
(i could hear you say to my father, 'but bulimics lose their teeth')

being a mother
is about
being there
when im in the kitchen crying and i know that you can hear me
but you do not come out
being a mother is about hearing the tinge in my voice
when i say that i honestly don't know when i will be ready for school
and the day
and not accusing me of attitude
but hearing that i am struggling
being a mother is about
supporting me
and not telling me that you're waiting for my next mental breakdown
and that im foolish for taking on so much
and trying to do well
because you think i can't do it
well
then maybe i can't do it

but you have failed
a mother's essential job is to help their children conquer the world
and you are not helping
it's mother's day tomorrow
but i do not want to celebrate
i'd say that i'm sorry
but i'm not

happy mother's day

I guess you could call it poetic how by the age of 12 I had no recollection of what happiness tasted like on my tongue. Some would say it was tragically beautiful.
But it was not poetic, nor was it beautiful,  but it was tragic. It was so very, very sad, and that sadness is only doubled now that people see sorrow as glorious.  It is not glorious. It is not strength. It is a lump of iron in your chest and stomach and it eats you from the inside, out and you have no right to think that blood stained wrists are anything other than tragic. So very,  very tragic.

there's a definite weight in my chest. maybe my heart is just made of lead or maybe it's the weight of my regrets pressing down on my ribcage. i'm laden with disappointment, it rests on my collarbones and sleeps on my shoulders, slowly pushing me six feet under.