Tag / motherhood

by bcmiller2014

Compounded

She calls in the morning, when
I’m waiting for alarm, breathing
the regretful morning, wishing
for light beyond sunlight and air
beyond breeze. She has no special 
ring tone, warning and dread 
having cancelled each others’ performance. I roll over. Groan. 
When I was small she’d care for
me when I was sick. I used to dream
of being ill, but then I wouldn’t admit
it when I was. She didn’t complain.
Never, forever in agony, and 
everyone admired that.
We were closer than mother and 
daughter. We were confidants, the
only other people in the world who
understood. And she needed me. 
I was her support, her best friend,
her reason for meaning. 
She sniffles on the phone and 
says she’s fine, her voice crackling
like a brittle leaf in autumn. The words 
are always different than the 
interpretations, but vague enough
to make me doubt myself. 
My spirit is emptied by her now, 
poured out without a conscious 
thought, painted on an underpass 
along an empty highway.  I drive
under my own graffiti, always 
desperate, no matter the colors in use.   
  
by bcmiller2014

Unwanted

I never wanted you, you
know, but it wasn’t personal. Maybe
I was made wrong. Maybe when 
God was handing out motherhood to
all the baby girls, he missed me.
Maybe I’m just screwed 
up, broken in-side-out so what
happens to other girls leaks from
my strange heart-shaped holes before
it can congeal. Or maybe I’m just 
me, and it doesn’t matter why, just
like it doesn’t matter who you 
would’ve been. 

I would’ve messed you up – sure then
unsure, right then left, weak and strong and weak. I’m full of leaks and 
familial traits I never wanted to give. I did all the millions of your permutations a favor. I saved you from sending roots down and down until there’s no down left but to go in a different direction. I’m doing that for
you. I’m saying “enough is enough,” 
I’m the end of the line, the last of
this particular form of fucked up DNA. 

You are safe, never being, never 
knowing that family is something 
to be survived sometimes, and
breathing is something you 
decide to do, and walking is downright heroic. I would’ve loved you. I could’ve poured my every cell into making your brand new person, but your mother would have died and 
you’d have been an orphan just like 
her, without a grave to visit.  We
deserve better.  I’m working on
better while you’re in the light, 
unformed, where dreams coalesce
and lose their form but are never, 
ever ignored. Even though I never
wanted you.