bare [h.s.]

Like Mother Like Daughter

Seventeen.
My sensible, responsible mother
was pregnant at seventeen.
She should've been enjoying
her youth and high school days,
planning for her senior prom,
focusing on scholarships,
and what she aspired to be once
grown up.
But all that was taken from her
by a night of careless behavior.
Rather, she focused on raising
a child, picking out baby clothes,
and giving up old dreams.
Her parents nearly ended her
once she had told them her secret,
and she wanted nothing more
than death at that hopeless moment.

She dropped out of high school
from the shame that being a young mother brought her.
For three months,
she did not tell the man
the baby was his.
But when it got harder to hide
the child growing inside of her,
she finally told him.

He was overjoyed by the news,
and even used the clichéd
"it's our destiny" line.
He was a firm believer in fate,
though through the years
fate has not always been good to him.
He stayed by her side through
miserable months of waiting.
He missed his graduation to attend the birth of his child.
And then,
they vowed to never leave
each other,
though he thought after
that night of getting lucky,
he wouldn't have to see her again.
He promised to stay,
and he did.
And he's my father.

She tells me to remain pure,
to not follow in her reckless footsteps,
to not let a man take advantage
of the beauty I hold.
But tonight, she feared the worst,
and I'm afraid that
I'm ready to give the beauty away.