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

I'm a poet,
You don't know it
I stay up writing...
My experience
It's kind of morbid
Lots of things have happened...
You'd be furious,
If you knew
Every thing you've done to me
Has been published...
My blog's my news.
Every bad day,
Every good thing,
has its own place...
In my station, Online.
Since I was fourteen
I've been taunting, you.

There is a monster under my bed.
Hauting, screaming, hurting me.
It talks to me every night.
I believe it doesn't want me here.
It screams and cries, acts more like a child than me.
It smells of the bottles in the glass container.
It stumbles up the stairs.
It opens every window, let's the cold winter frost in and hopes it freezes time.
Instead, it freezes me.
I wait, behave, hope.
I stay silent so it doesn't notice I'm here.
Tomorrow it will wake me up.
Tomorrow it will attend a parent-teacher conference.
Tomorrow they will praise it.
"You did a good job raising her"
Tomorrow it will turn into my mother.
Tomorrow night, the monster returns.

Sweet spiced cookies
wafting in my nose.
It draws me to the kitchen
and on my tippy toes.

Mama's made a special treat.
She says it's still too hot to eat.
I can hardly stand the wait!
I bet they'll taste so great.

I hold mama's apron
until she gives me some.
It tastes just like mommy,
and it tastes just like home.