One more social media message recorded at 5:25 am,
her familiar monotone chant, a mumbled abusive taunt,
another claim for something to change, a demand to be met;
an irrational strategy out of old deep pain for the upper hand,
to shame a different outcome for her life,
to put me in my place, as a failure, a non-entity.

My daughter’s 2020 dispatch to her 1970’s mother,
to gain control in an uncontrollable world,
she’s quite unaware her old Ma is gone,
flew the coop, vamoose, worn out, toast;
she’s unaware my reckless life lived only for others is ended,
my worthiness through frantic sought for approval over.

Back in the day this kind-a, sort-a, mother,
tried **** hard to figure out how’s it done,
how to parent while trapped inside an empty,
broken, clueless, twenty-year-old,
wondered everyday how to raise up, nurture, guide,
care for my children while still a kid myself.

Watched my mother suffer, die in an abusive marriage at fifty-one,
for years I’d prayed at the top of the stairs for their fighting to stop,
they never stopped… so I learned to survive my life,
made a “me” up, no internal identity, no actual obvious self,
never took the chance to become someone, instead played the role,
figured out what others wanted, did it, did it well, did it ‘til it hurt.

Now, seventy-two, over ripe, deeply bruised by a life gambled away
bewildered no one left to blame, victim of my own doing,
living but not alive, days and nights of untethered sadness, regret,
still Something beckons, shows itself in the kindness of strangers,
who appear, care, love without agenda, a new family sent
by angels whispering you are loved, you are loved, you are loved.

~ PE Kaplan