ᴀ ᴘᴇɴɴʏ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛꜱ?

july 15th, 2022 - breaking a generational mother-thing

TW:
mommy issues;
mentions of sh, abuse, trauma.

this poem, in the past, would have made me incredibly vulnerable to read, let alone post. but i have grown since then.

it is by far my best, most powerful, and longest poem (684 words!). i hope you enjoy <3

•••

from a mother
you are given life
and unconditional
love
and care
and happy memories
to share
with your own children some day.
but i was not given
these things
from a mother.
for a mother -
my mother -
gave me life
and some love
and care
but that love
and care
was selective
on whether i
preformed well
according to her
circus.

from a mother
you are taught lessons
on life.
from my mother
i was taught
how to manipulate
to get my way.
how to choose my
words
ever so carefully.
how to dance on
eggshells
and not
make a sound or
break them.
how to lie
how to hide
how to predict a
situations outcome
and how to
guide
a situation
to my preferred outcome.

i was not taught
to love myself
or how to love others
or
who to give my
overbearing love to -
i was taught to
love the sting of
a blade
that i drag across
my skin.
drawing -
creating art with
vibrant red.
i was taught to
swallow the venom
from the bites of
others.
for it is better to
swallow the emotion
rather than let it
hurt
till it has run its course -
as it aches
and throbs within the
wound created.

i learned how
to suppress my
rage
and turn it into
annoyance.
better that than
reacting as
she would.
her anger
was a bonfire -
slowly burning
bigger and
brighter
as the flames fed
off of the wood
it was tossed;
like a starved dog
tossed a steak
but commanded to not
eat
i starved myself
of the release of my
emotions.

as the days dragged on
and the years flew by
my emotions -
they added up -
till i hysterically
let them out
but never
let them go.
it was tiring
carrying the dead
weight of my emotions
and her emotions
and everyone else's emotions
but in order to not
feel as though
i myself were a
burden
i forced my
shoulders and my
fragile soul
to carry others
burdens
for them.

i became
the mother i never had
but always wanted
for everyone else
and deprived myself
of the love
and care
that i so desperately
needed
to grow and thrive.
just as she did,
i put myself second
and in turn
those around me
put me last.
i taught them
what she
taught me;
that i was not
worth
the time or the effort -
to teach
to save
or to love.

i am a
daughter -
a victim
of a mother
who was also
once
a daughter -
a victim
of a mother
but she -
unlike me
still carries
the burdens of
a lost childhood
and an early
loss of innocence
and she unlike me
still refuses
to remove her own
shackles
though the key is
in the slot
she just

sits there
and waits
for a knight
in gleaming armour
unaware that those
men in that armour
are just the
same
as her father;
the devil
in disguise of
a savior.
but that is
all she knows.
for the mother
before her
and many mothers
before her
were not taught
the life lessons one
could only get from
a loving and caring
mother who wore
no shackles.

i come from generations
of these women -
and i hope to break
the chain some day
but i fear
the worst;
becoming a mother
and then
becoming my mother
though i cannot exactly
blame her
for the things she has
done or the words
she has said -
i can't exactly forgive her
either
as she still did
those things and
she still said
those words
and they are engraved
into my brain
yet lost from
my memories.

i may not be the
oldest
whom which
faced the hardest blows -
i am the middle
who quickly learned
to face them
and adapt
as she had learned
through trial and error
and through experience
with the first
how to deal her blows
with no hint
of their coming.
i am not my mother.
we are not our mother.
but the overwhelming
fear of
becoming just like
her
rots away in our
thoughts -

waiting.

waiting.

- alb

•••

this one leaves me speechless after i read it.

any comments?
critiques?
questions?

"Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it - that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun."

- Stephen Fry

published: july 25, 2022