 May I be the oldest living person
Who once believed the lie that smoking is rebellion. So that no more children of abuse enter this prison Seeking solace And then turn around years later to bars. May they be warned by my weakness Saddened by my addiction And see me as very uncool. May I die old and grey shriveled and tan smelling only of fancy face oils. May the gaslight on the foggy front lawn in me Which had been slowly dimmed For too many decades Be turned back up By my own new And stronger hand. May it release it’s fuel So quickly and completely That it explodes; Extinguishes. Is replaced by a solar panel. And then, finally May I lose my lighter On a lazy Sunday at the river powered by a new sun That can’t burn me. May it drop from a loose pocket Into the swirling current I am perched above On a safe and sturdy branch, And May I never buy another.
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“We are the daughters of the witches you couldn’t burn” says a bumper sticker on the dirty Prius in front of me.
She’s got two car seats behind her like I do, and she looks a lot like me. Cool mom. Definitely down with the gays. Probably still smokes secret cigarettes behind the house sometimes. Has a few large unfinished tattoos from when she went from being punk as fuck To Mom as fuck. But we are not the same. We are not all the daughters of the witches they could not burn. Some of us come from a long line of torches. Some of us come from women who tried their best to cleanse the witch from us With flaming tongues. Who attempted to shrink us; Tame us; To Make us feel pain like them. Who did not protect us from the men they protect. My mother forced me to mother alone, because she can’t be alone. There’s no bumper sticker for that. Theres no secret handshake for those of us who lost our mothers Before losing our mothers. I am an orphan, by choice. By terrible, isolating, Heart-trampling “Choice.” And I have noticed lately, That most of the choices given to women Are this kind of choice. We’ve been told we can have it all, When we are really just expected to do it all. Be it all. Receive it all with a grateful smile. Women have come so far, they say. As if we have not been dragged here by our Balyage highlights. |
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