Dear Mom

Dear Mom, 

You say, “You’re a pretty girl,”

“You’re my angel, my baby, my world,”

If this is true, mom.

If this is fact,

How can you say such hurtful comments to me

How can you do something like that?

“I’ll love you if you do this”

“No one will like you,”

‘You’re a liar, a cheat”

“I won’t love you if you do that”

But why should I care Mom,

Why should what they think matter,

Because nothing hurts me more,

Than to hear you point out that

It seems nothing I do,

Could make it any better

Or that,

Spending time with someone else,

Makes me a bad daughter.

I’m either

A good girl

Or a failure

But when I plead in opposition,

You say “Girl, you need to calm down, and listen,

“You’re just a little too tough,

You need to smile, just a little more,

But not too much. No one will like you anymore”

I’m either there too much, or not enough.

I’m always there, or never there,

Too terrible, or never quite great enough.

But Mom,

Why can’t you hear me.

I have feelings, and I will not apologize for that.

I love you, but you dislike me, and I try to be great.

Why do you shame me because of that.

You’re someone who raised me,

So how can you say the ugly things you do about me?

These questions are not out of spite for you

Neither contempt or disdain,

I just wish you would take the time to hear the words

That you say.

Because I can’t spend another day,

Listening to your internalized hate.

For years and years I’ve tried not to let it bother me,

But I can’t anymore because

Families should live in harmony,

Divide and conquer,

That’s how you keep me down,

And that’s how you hold me back.

You make me feel shameful for the skin that I’m in,

And see to it that I pass it on to the next of kin,

But that’s got to stop mom,

We can’t be like

This anymore.

I just want to, love myself,

Be who I am, and know that you won’t see me as,

Just unsuccessful,

And not worth raising anymore.

That you’ll still be able to think of me positively.

That you’ll be able to see me for more than my mistakes.

Mom,

You say I’m a pretty girl,

Your angel, your baby, your world. 

But if this is true Mom,

If this is fact

I need you

To have my back.