I think my mother might outlive her daughter.
Dark circles grow like bruises that never fade.
Disappointments rot in the corners.
She shouts.
She murmurs.
She disappears.
Reappears.
Murmurs.
Disappears.
And I’m ten again,
small, pinned under the weight of her voice,
the air, too thick to breathe.
I thought I got out.
But the walls still close in,
The smell of this house still makes me gag.
Home, they call it,
but it gnaws at me,
feeds on the soft parts,
and spits me out smaller than I came in.
She wants me to fill the holes
her husband left,
her mother left.
Believe me;
if I could have,
I would have bled myself dry.
But I am shards held together by will alone.
How is survival a crime?
deliriouswithacherryontop 