Poetry Portfolio

I Have Recently Stopped Calling you "Mom"

I don't exactly know what prompted this

Change, it was as if one day, the

vermillion colored glasses I had

secured tightly onto my face had

fallen off and I could finally see

who you truly were. Erin, you don't

deserve the title of "mom" but I had

felt so bad calling you anything else,

as if it were taboo calling you by

your name, but calling you "mom" is starting

to hurt. Every time I say it, it feels

as if I am swallowing glass, the shards

cutting my tongue until all you can hear

is painful mumbling and desperation

for you to be anyone else but "mom"

You gave up the word "mom" when you threw me

out at 17, my belongings and

my heart lying on the asphalt in front

of your tiny, weed-smelling house.

I gave up the word "mom" when I took time

to heal myself, realizing how you would

project your failure onto us, grasping

for the validation you never

got from your own parents.

And most of the time I am okay with

not having "mom" in my vocabulary.

But sometimes, on Sunday mornings when the

air is cool and the morning dew is

sticking to the grass, or when I am

lying in my bed with a cold, exhausted

from having to heal myself.

I would do anything to be able

to pick up the phone and call you, mom.