A Poem for My Mother

This poem is for you,

mother,

despite the way you brutalized me with your words,

mother,

despite the way you hardly cared for you daughter, and-

mother,

despite this bitterness I still feel toward you.

-

You'll find,

my words are all I have,

the only gift I can offer,

so, I'll write this poem for you and-

in it, I will recall our only good memory,

the one in which you put a comb through my well-slept-in hair,

and in the mirror, I watched the concentration on your face,

as you attempted to make your unkempt daughter,

into something you wanted to see,

because in that moment,

mother,

I felt for the first and last time-

our link as a family.

-

So,

mother,

I write this poem to you,

and hope-

despite your dislike for poetry-

that you understand the love I refuse to discard,

even though,

mother,

you were hardly a mother in the first place.