Your mom keeps movies in her cupboard.
Plays them on repeat when she can't sleep.
They're hopeless love stories that have been romanticized
to please the weary eyes of mothers stuck in a marriage.
Who've been martyrs since their vows were taken
on a forever they promised their souls to keep.

It wasn't all bad, not in the beginning.
Just a few comments
that were expected from the temper he could hold,
a simple brute and a bride
always clinging onto the beauty of their connection,
and it wasn't a lie:
He loved her more than he knew he could.

But as the days got fuller, the nights got longer.
The pull of their bodies no longer could attract a sustainable hold,
and they held love as a suspension over their heads,
grabbing air until they could reach it.
He grew meaner with every year,
found fault in her innocence and dreamy eyes.
Blamed "*******" and hid in the basement,
away from all the raising she was doing wrong.
She just held her fist in her mouth and prayed to something.
Trusted more in the past than what she could see,
hoped on all the things she knew he never would be.
He never liked the desperate faith she put
in the beauty of her children.
After all, especially you
she idolized.
Thrived off your potential.
Steadied her shake in your persistence, and leaned on the chance
of the beautiful man
you'd become to be.
She put her hands in yours and drug through all the bad stuff,
covered your eyes, bore the pain, and indulged in illusions
so you could be shielded from all the fallout,
kept privy from the brokenness in the back of throats
that's been bubbling until you were full grown,
and reached the surface with a punch in the face
to all the things your mother poured in you
instead of him.

You tried everything you could to protect her.
But his anger was too much to cover up,
and there once was love just isn't enough.

Your dad doesn't like her movies.
"No **** good that fantasy can be."
But she'll keep watching and watching
the picture of all the things
the ring on her finger will never be.