Poetry Portfolio

I Have Recently Stopped Calling you "Mom"- edited v2

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.