The Matriarch

write please read and enjoy

I fall into mud, you pull me up by my neck

You let me wash the stains out on my own

Never carried me, you taught me

Everything about survival that I've ever known!

I'd be a mongrel, a cut throat or have my throat cut

deadbeat in the dirt, on my hind legs, a mutt overgrown

if you didn't fight me, force me, love me enough to make me

overcome the mistakes my loose-knit heart has sewn

for the best and the worst you were there every day, not a moment free

that's all the good times, all the cross-talk and all the bad times we had going on

you taught me how to settle conflicts without losing my identity

they bring hardships with soft cargo, soon enough they're going, gone

love is the answer to my burdens, nobody's baggage is garbage; it's not my duty to bear it, I toss it and leave it thrown

you taught me giving people space and isolation are different

it's one thing to be there for you and quiet and another to let you feel like you're all alone

my mother you came from nothing to raise this whole family like the spinal bone,

for every storm, every broken inconsistency and emergency, you are the matriarch, the stone.