Mothers and Daughters

Your mother loved you.

That’s true. 

Your mother didn’t know how to love you more than herself.

That’s also true.

You fault her for it.

For always picking herself over you, 

Wanting to scream you were important too.

Now your older,

And you appreciate her coldness.

Her relentless pursuit of running. 

It gave you the freedom to be cold

The freedom to run. 

But it also taught you, 

Love, in essence, is selfish. 

So you don’t let it stay.

And you chase boys who

you know

won’t.

Who you knew never would. 

You like their cold nonchalance. 

How they never put you first. 

No strings attached. 

And you like it that way,

It's the way you were used to. 

Though you might cry some nights, 

You think of your mothers infrequent phone calls. 

And when you do get her on the phone,

you tell her about them. 

“Fuck him.” 

She says, 

“There are a million others and you're too beautiful to care.” 

In a way her perpetual loneliness,

Was yours to share. 

She gave you the freedom of freedom,

Even when you were a child and didn’t want it.

And you feel yourself becoming colder bit by bit. 

A glass plane that eventually becomes a

Mirrored refection.

When you were a child

you wanted to scream. 

Wanted to make her stay. 

Now older, 

You can’t be assed to stay anywhere 

A lesson in repetition. 

The mother-daughter cycle circles on and on forever

A bond only you two share.

But you do have to wonder sometimes,

Is she happy? 

Was she ever?