Looking in the rearview mirror
To a simpler time and place

Everything much clearer
A smile on every face

Peace, love and Innocence
So safe in mother's arms

A time when every thought made sense
Sheltered from the harm

Looking up each day
My vision filtered child

Buried life, now packed away
Once lived, recorded, filed

Lost childhood
a shattered snow globe on the floor
enchanting glitter and broken glass,
swirling in a mass, I find no cure.
Swept up the shards
that faintly jingled while being discarded
cut myself cleaning the mess
and it scarred
a surface of me that must stay hardened.

So independent
I can live on my own
don't know what is best
but it's better unknown.
I am shaped the way you had me sculpted
I've got a sharpness deep inside
here's the woman that has resulted
from a young girl's need to hide.

Mom
I brought a portrait photo of you
with me to art class
the teacher said
I looked just the same
everyone always told me I was like my dad
I was so happy to be beautiful, that day.

and I know you've said you don't understand poetry
so I'll say it easy
I love you so much
I hope you don't hate me
for what I used to be.
Forgive the broken snow globes
I have already forgiven the memories.

There was a night
Sitting in my room
Engulfed with pain
That old bedroom
With memories plastered on the walls
You sat next to me
Seeing the pain she had just put me through
You said to me
“It wasn’t your fault”
And i cried
Tears i’ve never cried before
Sadness
Anger
Relief someone saw it too
You held me
Ever so tight
Said you wouldnt let go
“It wasn’t your fault
It wasn’t your fault
It wasn’t your fault”
Made me scream it aloud
Until I knew it was true
You kept holding me while i cried
Thinking I’d always have you

You said it was all my fault
It’s not my fault you raised me this way
Your life
The ****** ways you grew
My life
Having to start anew
You blame me for the things I’ve learned from you
“Do what I say not as I do”
A ****** thing from the both of you
Tiptoeing around a line that was askew
Her teaching me things that will never be true
Lies from the mouths of people I knew
Reject
Neglect
Needs that would never be met
A million thoughts in my head
But only two that say what I wished I had said
*******

The joy of my baby right before me
But I can't seem to feel it.

Loving husband on my side
But I can't seem to see it.

Precious friends with a lifeline
But I can't seem to grasp it.

A mist has settled all around
I must find my way through it.

I never felt loved. I remind myself it’s not because I wasn’t lovable, but because I was made to hate everyone who loved me and loathe everything I’ve ever loved. You had to purge me of love to assure you were its only source.

I looked for love in a golden page— learned quickly what it was to feel imprisoned by flesh-– learned quickly I’m meant to feel so tightly wound it’s as if  barbed wire snakes  my skin. I’ve yet to come undone. The serpent is starved for its prey and I let it swallow me whole.
I know I was born to listen— born to obey. The word “yes” was burned on my tongue from the moment I could speak it, recited like a scripture, scorched into my subconscious by a “saint’s” shallow sermon.

Love was never patient, nor was she kind. Love struck without warning. She consumed me whole as the serpent does and spit me out when she was full. To this day, I starve.

Love was pompous. I was nothing but she was the world. No pride of God could measure to that of the saint who loved me.

Love dishonored me with every slice from her tongue. Love was selfish. Love was rageful. She shattered with the lightest touch. She was wicked— a liar. She claimed to keep me safe but my fear of hell was nothing compared to my fear of her. I was the only thing love hated more than herself.

Love recited my wrongs more than my name.

Love says I’m a liar. She says I am cursed like her. Deep down, I think it’s true. Love was fruit grown from a poison vine. Deep down I know there’s cancer at my roots. Deep down I know I rot.

Love only wants me when I’m small. When I’m afraid. When I’m alone. When I’m malleable. Love loves me when she is the only thing I have to love.

The love I know is violent. She is brutal and unforgiving. Love killed me with her first touch.

When I say that you were a wonderful mother and person, I'm being sincere.
The memory of the last Christmas that we shared is something I hold dear.
We spent many Christmases together but we won't be able to do it again.
We'll spend Christmases together in Heaven in the future but I don't know when.
Back in 2012, I gave you and Dad two presents each on Christmas Eve.
You passed away less than three months later and it was hard to believe.
I didn't realize just how sick that you were.
Your death was painful and hard to endure.
If I'd known that the Christmas of 2012 would be our last Christmas, I would've appreciated it more.
I will always appreciate and cherish the final Christmas we shared and all of the Christmases before.
You and Dad are both gone and I can't spend another Christmas with either of you.
I want to wish you and Dad a Merry Christmas because it's the proper thing to do.

There’s something so comforting
In trading in everything
The taking and giving
Of motherhood

What does it mean to be whole?
Shifting your insides around an additional soul?
The pain and the toll
Of motherhood

How to express
The vastness of universes
Alongside the mundane  
Of getting dressed in the morning?

There’s something so absolute
Something so boundlessly true
In the brown of the root and the red of the fruit
In the green of the shoots
Of motherhood