I reach to touch the hand of a loving mother
and find instead another’s glare.
A demon like the ones from childhood nightmares,
She reaches back to comfort me
but her hand is wrinkled and cracked
and bleeding from neglect.

Her face is scarred and bitter towards the world,
every moment anticipating a blade in her back
from the torments of the past,
from the torments of the ones who loved her.

Her heart is twisted in agony,
Sagging like her breasts,
lagging like her will and strength.
She who bore me bears an unbearable burden
on a soul that wishes only to be free.

To be free from the images of her mother
plummeting from x number of stories
up some building built too high
SMACK
Into the pavement.

From a father who cursed her to hell,
to boarding school and a mental hospital
cuz he couldn’t take her,
cuz he didn’t love her.

Her hair’s falling out from the drugs
and electro something therapy
meant to rearrange those nerves that unnerve
and zap her back to herself.
All the while she’s forgettin’ who she is,
who I am.

Can’t even remember her honeymoon.

Losing sight of God’s, Destiny’s, Fate’s hand,
whoever might be pulling her forward now,
her pain and uncertainty read like a book,
one without a plot, rooted in sorrow,
diluted in her tears yet legible
from years of knowing what she’s like.

Like when company comes over for a visit,
a friendly hello or
bittersweet yo what’s up
she runs to her room and hides from her fear,
prisoner in a self made cage.
“I’m safe now,” so she thinks.
But who’s protecting her from herself.

Who’s protecting her from the psycho depressive
Anorexia that keeps her 105, 106 maybe.
Is that skinny enough?
Each morning she measures her milk
to make sure she doesn’t consume
and she’s consumed.

And then there’s dad who’s toils spoil his children three,
who works his life away in the midst of living,
gets up at four thirty,
home at five every day,
cuz mom’s too scared to work,
to scared she’ll cry and be bitch-slapped back
by her father’s will.

So here I sit, her hand on my shoulder
trying to console me after a teacher’s death,
and all I can do is think about strangling her and saying
Don’t give me your fucking pity.
You who’s pity has wrought from the depths
such anger in me.

Anger for all the years you’ve wasted
the tears you’ve pasted on my face
my face that reflects your shattered self
who’s self pity and weakness deepens each day
each new day when you struggle to get out of bed
since going to bed you took too many pills
pills that sicken and thicken your mind
a mind so sad and . . . oh so sad.

You reach to give me a hug
as the lights begin to fade,
I hold back a tear cuz I know
that I don’t love you back.

And that night I bawled, I cried,
I wept and screamed bloody murder,
I broke and leaked, blew mucus from my running nose
as my eyes wouldn’t stop running.
I popped, I blew a fuse, I boiled over,
I shorted out, maxed out,
outdid every time I ever cried,
when I realized that in truth
I hate . . .
I HATE
my mother.