Apathy Stains Her Eyes

The prompt for this was to have an ironic last line.

She runs the streets at night.

Her hair whips in the wind

as she lets it down from a tight ponytail,

finally free from the prison called home,

and a smile spreads across her face.

She stays out late,

most of the time never coming back at all.

And she knows what she is doing

but she doesn’t care,

She just runs out the door every night,

jumping on the back of his motorcycle,

clinging to his leather jacket,

loving every second of the ride.

Apathy stains her eyes,

her heart.

She sees their eyes reflect in the window

from her headlights backing out of the driveway

again.

He is all that matters to her and

she doesn’t care to stay for dinner;

she’d rather eat with him.

Her loved ones wonder why it is him she loves

when it’s so apparent 

that all he wants is a fling.

But she just tells them,

calmly,

as she slips his leather jacket on over her own,

“I like bad boys.”

Then they ride away into the smoky sunset

like some sort of twisted teenage dream,

and they all wonder if her face will ever be familiar again.

And this behavior may best describe a 17-year-old girl

with emotional problems and a confused set of priorities,

but no,

She is my mother.