A Mother's Love

Loving you has and always will be like taking a steel wire brush to my skin

There is no sense in it, but I do it for you, always

I watch the blood we share bubble up from the flesh you stretched out over me

But I am never as clean as you need me to be

And I am never able to pull you from within me

I have been so patient with my love

Living and breathing inside of glass

Pressed flat and unfeeling between sheets of sharp edged guilt

You claim the marrow in my bones and demand thanks for the oxygen I breathe in

It would never have filled my lungs if it weren’t for you

And your murmurs, they’ve become tumors lining my spine

They pulse with your fears

(I could leave at any moment)

They threaten to burst open and spill your anger into my bloodstream

(How dare I hope for more from life than caring for you)

I have your freckles on my neck and your birthmarks on my back

And you have my future balled up in your fist

I am always your little girl and to you, I am perfect

So long as I am nothing more than your compliant creation