Mother’s Day Poem (Written To Mom, Not For Her)
Posted: September 21st, 2014, 6:53 pm
trigger warnings should be assumed with any poem ever written, but I'll say this one involves sex and violence, and also mothers. Also 80's mom jeans. I'll shut up now.
You stumbled into the house late at night, your dragon breath reeking of whiskey and menthol cigarettes,
Your faded 80’s Levi’s barely clung to your dwindling waist.
Dad was still out philandering with the twenty-somethings and had paid no attention
As you stood there fuming, storming out in a rage.
Your figure looming over my sister in the staircase, you on the higher step
The screams shook me out of a stupor
First yours, shouting obscenities:
“You little slut! I know what you were doing! I know what you did!”
Dripping with misplaced malice; I hid
Upstairs and away from the violent exchange.
Then hers:
“I didn’t do anything! I was changing for bed! You’re being crazy!”
Desperate cries for rationality, wishing this dark personality belonged to some other,
Instead my own mother unleashed her scaly claws.
Not in her house, not by her laws would this debauchery go on,
Did she think she was stupid? Or blind? She knew what she saw!
“You were naked! I know he was here! You were fucking him, weren’t you!” you demanded rhetorically,
Lashing out insults to show your superiority.
I lingered at the top of the stairs in frozen horror, watching as my mom called my sister a whore
Unmoving, not knowing if intervening would lead to less or more insanity
Like a coward I listened to the shower of profanities.
She would just go to bed and be back to normal in the morning, just let her vent,
I’d never seen her this wicked and didn’t know what it meant
When her arms outstretched, not to cradle and soothe her adolescent child
But to strangle that delicate 15-year-old neck in a suffocating grip,
The neck of the defiled,
My heart grew frog legs and leapt from my pond-scum chest.
What did it look like from your angle? To see an angel
Whose lips turned purple before you?
She was just a frightened little girl who adored you—
You were so angry you wanted to kill?
You would squeeze all the breath from her body until
Her convulsing arms fell limp to her side?
Is that a mother’s pride?
I screamed for her, but I didn’t shove you, didn’t stab you, didn’t move an inch to her aide
I could make an excuse but I was just too afraid—
Maybe for her, but most likely for me.
I will always carry that shame, like a cat carries fleas.
Eventually your conscience returned and your hands loosened,
Leaving deep red bruises on her skin:
The mark of her sin.
The sin of maybe living, and loving, and fucking.
You’ve never brought it up, not to apologize, nor to accuse,
You just let my sister marinate in self-disgust for her own sexuality
You let her lose her own sense of self-worth.
Because maybe that kind of inner-torment would keep her from a teenage birth.
But if our being sexual beings brought such rage to you, where were you when?
When abused children continued the cycle using my sister as a puppet?
When every game we played involved sex when we were six?
When you watched me being raped with my bedroom door wide open and did nothing to save me?
When you proceeded to seek your own counseling for my rape by telling your coworkers and family about it?
When your sexually assaulted child grew into an adult who couldn’t function in the world without self-medication and self-deprecation and you “couldn’t understand why” and you “didn’t have the patience for it anymore”?
When I told you I liked women and you equated that to “confused admiration” and “just a phase” until I “found the right man”?
When I did date a man and suddenly fucking was no longer sinful?
When you manipulated your children into feeling sorry for YOU and the emotions YOU would feel if we brought any of these things up, so that every tear we shed fell onto only our own pillows
And you would never have to confront your own mistakes?
If you have a right to be human, why is the dignity of imperfection not extended to your children?
Why must we bear the burden of those who’ve tainted us?
Why is it that I am “asking for it” if I make a joke that is crude,
If I don’t act like a prude am I really that vile?
I’m not trying to point fingers or live in denial
My faults are my own choice and I’ll claim them.
However, I haven’t forgotten yours, either,
And the fact that you have
Means I’ll never really trust you.
Anyway, Happy Mother’s Day.
You stumbled into the house late at night, your dragon breath reeking of whiskey and menthol cigarettes,
Your faded 80’s Levi’s barely clung to your dwindling waist.
Dad was still out philandering with the twenty-somethings and had paid no attention
As you stood there fuming, storming out in a rage.
Your figure looming over my sister in the staircase, you on the higher step
The screams shook me out of a stupor
First yours, shouting obscenities:
“You little slut! I know what you were doing! I know what you did!”
Dripping with misplaced malice; I hid
Upstairs and away from the violent exchange.
Then hers:
“I didn’t do anything! I was changing for bed! You’re being crazy!”
Desperate cries for rationality, wishing this dark personality belonged to some other,
Instead my own mother unleashed her scaly claws.
Not in her house, not by her laws would this debauchery go on,
Did she think she was stupid? Or blind? She knew what she saw!
“You were naked! I know he was here! You were fucking him, weren’t you!” you demanded rhetorically,
Lashing out insults to show your superiority.
I lingered at the top of the stairs in frozen horror, watching as my mom called my sister a whore
Unmoving, not knowing if intervening would lead to less or more insanity
Like a coward I listened to the shower of profanities.
She would just go to bed and be back to normal in the morning, just let her vent,
I’d never seen her this wicked and didn’t know what it meant
When her arms outstretched, not to cradle and soothe her adolescent child
But to strangle that delicate 15-year-old neck in a suffocating grip,
The neck of the defiled,
My heart grew frog legs and leapt from my pond-scum chest.
What did it look like from your angle? To see an angel
Whose lips turned purple before you?
She was just a frightened little girl who adored you—
You were so angry you wanted to kill?
You would squeeze all the breath from her body until
Her convulsing arms fell limp to her side?
Is that a mother’s pride?
I screamed for her, but I didn’t shove you, didn’t stab you, didn’t move an inch to her aide
I could make an excuse but I was just too afraid—
Maybe for her, but most likely for me.
I will always carry that shame, like a cat carries fleas.
Eventually your conscience returned and your hands loosened,
Leaving deep red bruises on her skin:
The mark of her sin.
The sin of maybe living, and loving, and fucking.
You’ve never brought it up, not to apologize, nor to accuse,
You just let my sister marinate in self-disgust for her own sexuality
You let her lose her own sense of self-worth.
Because maybe that kind of inner-torment would keep her from a teenage birth.
But if our being sexual beings brought such rage to you, where were you when?
When abused children continued the cycle using my sister as a puppet?
When every game we played involved sex when we were six?
When you watched me being raped with my bedroom door wide open and did nothing to save me?
When you proceeded to seek your own counseling for my rape by telling your coworkers and family about it?
When your sexually assaulted child grew into an adult who couldn’t function in the world without self-medication and self-deprecation and you “couldn’t understand why” and you “didn’t have the patience for it anymore”?
When I told you I liked women and you equated that to “confused admiration” and “just a phase” until I “found the right man”?
When I did date a man and suddenly fucking was no longer sinful?
When you manipulated your children into feeling sorry for YOU and the emotions YOU would feel if we brought any of these things up, so that every tear we shed fell onto only our own pillows
And you would never have to confront your own mistakes?
If you have a right to be human, why is the dignity of imperfection not extended to your children?
Why must we bear the burden of those who’ve tainted us?
Why is it that I am “asking for it” if I make a joke that is crude,
If I don’t act like a prude am I really that vile?
I’m not trying to point fingers or live in denial
My faults are my own choice and I’ll claim them.
However, I haven’t forgotten yours, either,
And the fact that you have
Means I’ll never really trust you.
Anyway, Happy Mother’s Day.
