I walk into the thrift store yelling at my mother,
which is terrible because
1) I’m yelling at my mother in public and
2) I’ve always hated people who yell at their mothers in public.
But she just won’t stop
Dissecting every part of me that I hate,
Every part that is stripped bare for all the world to see
But is still somehow secret.

Somewhere between 12 year old me
With her short blunt black curls and bruised knees
And 15 year old me
With her blood shot eyes and broken back trauma
I’ve developed a habit of stuttering my words,
Of letting anxiety snake through me like
Early on set rigor mortis.
Somewhere things got seriously ****** up.

How do you tell your mother,
Who birthed you who raised you who loved you,
That you can’t talk to strangers
Because you once got too friendly with a boy
Holding garden sheers,
A boy who clipped your wings and left you
On a bedroom floor?
How do you tell her
Your poems aren’t just statements,
They’re stories?
How do you tell her
You’re like Sisyphus with the boulder,
Like Prometheus with the eagle?
How do you tell the truth?

I walk out of the thrift store quiet.
My mother doesn’t say a thing.
On the way home
She takes sharp turns and hits the brakes.
Hard.
My stomach churns.
This is my punishment and I deserve this
For yelling at my mother.