I'm sad.
And that's okay.

This heaviness in my heart
is not mine alone,
I carry it for my mother
and my father
and his mother

I carry it for her husband

who quickly became
the demon
sleeping in the
shadows
that then became
a
stain
who's faint edges
still linger.

Deep and bruised
like my heart
after that day
confused and
oh, so green

I was already shedding
my innocence,
but you stole
hers

in one moment.

And for this
she
starves
herself
of nourishment

of unadulterated
joy

her body,
something she feels
shame
about

all because you thought
every
body
was yours
to be played
with.

My mother and her mother,
(four generations of mothers to be exact)
All conceived children They didn't want,
because They couldn't bear the alternative.

My sister and I are the only two who survived.
The intergenerational resentment
that is cast among each woman in our family
who decides to carry the burden of their unwanted child.

My mother loves us as much as she is capable-
Just like her mother and mothers mother before her.

Birthed into four generations of hurt,
that longed for acceptance and love that only a mother could give.
But each mother couldn't.

It took four generations of women and their pain
and longingness for love,
to create two women who are full of nothing but love
and are hungry to give it to the world

(we forgive you, because it's all you've known)

Every man that I have ever let inside me is you,
Mom.
Every man that I have ever let see me,
touch me, open me up.
Expecting them to tear down the walls that are hundreds of feet high,
just to walk right through
as if my guarded heart is a sliding glass door.  
As if they can see right through my frame.
They see me: bold, opinionated, strong.
But They all have all looked right though me, and can see the little girl who wants to be loved.
They told me they loved me.
Touched the hidden places that have hurt to touch,
as if they knew exactly where they could be found.
Only to treat me like a warm body for their cold. Blood.
They take me as a shell.

Because, like you Mom, they exploit me.
Use my weakness in seeing good, reading what makes me tick,
Learn to gain my trust.
Just to abandon me.
Like you.