I am your product,
But not your likeness.
I borrowed from you,
You borrowed me.

There is an evenness to our bargain
As long as it stops now.

You laid the cards and instilled my empathy.
To never say no because I couldn't, you needed me.
To listen to your explanations of family,
But you stopped protecting me.

Always saying it wasn't enough.
That you worked hard,
That you worked long,
That I had no excuses,
Because It's true, I didn't.
I had facts of my reality;
Fact of otherness,
Fact of alone.
Of ostracism,
Of wondering if a crowd would bring me companionship.
Of thinking a man was the only way to happiness,
Because you seemed to think so.
Of cursing your talk of family when you left to find your missing pieces in another's bed.
You needing me to be strong because we were all we had;
Shutting my mouth,
Pressing words back into feelings.
That you used me just like they claimed you'd done to them.
Baring their children, not caring for their say, not asking for more.
But you wanted more from me
You told me often and over.
Leaving me to be the milk-less maid.
The child mother to her mothers children,
Your sweet little children;
The ones I fiercely love,
The ones I fear you'll let break,
Like you have broken me.
My sweet little sisters.

You were my first love,
My first true hate.
The woman who bore me,
The woman who cast me out.
The wisdom in my head,
And the fool before my eyes.
My mother, the bringer, the borrower.
The one person I thought would never betray my trust;
The deserter in my time of need.

You may have borrowed my childhood;
Forever unreturned.
You may have taught me kindness in your selfishness,
You may have been my hero,
I thought you were one...
Someone to aspire to be...
But it's so simple and straight who you are now,
Now that you aren't seen through the rosy cast of my child love.

I play my hand, laying them down
Forthright and coming.
To let you know that I am no longer yours,
No longer yours to borrow.
I am my own,
You can no longer claim me.