Self-Sabotage, Revised

Mother fails. Denies. Cries.

Unused to failure, she is forced to admit

He won’t apologize.

It took me awhile to finalize

The difference between “hypocrite”

And “illness.” Mother cries.

His choices – that’s what they are – traumatize

My Respect. He throws a fit,

Reverting back to 1961. He refuses to apologize.

Mother, with her compromise, justifies. Mystifies.

She teaches me to permit. Submit.

I never tell her I hate it. When she cries.

Impossibly, we’ve come to minimize

The moving – it is unfit

To say “living” – corpse who can’t apologize.

The fog of fury makes it difficult to recognize

I should try to be compassionate.

But it will be hard to cry for a person who couldn’t apologize

Even when he saw how often he made my mother cry.