I understand

To my Pa.
I know what three o’ clock in the morning regret feels like
The pain of not knowing how to change
Not knowing where to begin
Not knowing if I am me, or if I am the amber liquid I drink.

To my Ma.
I know the pain of a child rejecting you
To carry her in my womb for nine months
Only to be deemed unacceptable
To stand by her 18 years
To have her tell me I’m not good enough.
I was good enough to give birth to her.
But I am not good enough to be her friend

To wish I was anyone other than me so that they would love and respect me again
To know what it means to be a total fuck up at the one job that even idiots have done.
Women who have never read can be a good mother and I cannot even with a college degree.

I watch completely wasted drug addicted women get more respect then I do.
I am baffled. I sometimes think that women are expected to be broken.
I am too strong for them to understand me.
I am too willing to embrace the goddess inside of me.
It scares them. It’s a shame. One day they will need this strength that comes from me.
That comes from you Mom. I’m sorry Mom, I love and admire you.


To my Child
I get it.
The frustration of not getting why I was not enough for my Parent.
Why did the bottle mean so much more then me?
To reject my mother for not doing a good enough job
To be her superior. It never dawned on me she let me have that role.  
To be in awe of her stupidity
I mean, “how could she?”

to life
I have erroneously thought that the people who loved me the most, did not love me at all.
They did. Maybe too much.

It was you life. You are as indifferent as mother nature is to the lone wolf
What terrifies me is the reality that love is a lie. –

if love was enough:
I would have stopped death in it’s tracks.
I would have held back the cold winter tendrils of poverty.
I would have crushed addiction under my heel.
I would have shielded my children from insults and rejection.
I would have laughed in the dark shadows of depression and anxiety.
I would have danced in the rain.

Love does not win. Life always wins. Even when it kills us.

Life. You are a brutal bitch.