Rations of Good
All this bloodshed,
All this red,
All because you could never quite mold me into the shape of your own redemption,
All because you refused to give up on the idea of me,
All because you wouldn’t stop dancing foolishly around the war zone that was really my funeral grounds.
I died a long time ago, Mom.
You won’t find the me that you made in the places you keep looking,
For the person that came back to life exists far beyond what is just an extension of you and your pain.
It is no wonder you fail to recognize me.
I never stay dead, but not because I finally learned that I am loved,
Not because I finally feel worthy of it or entitled to having it,
But most often because I know you’d follow me to the afterlife,
And guilt is one lesson you made damn sure I learned.
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And thus every time I find myself in a place where I consider writing the final line of my story,
I realize, that even in the case of my own mortality,
I,
Have only ever been about
You.
No need of mine is small enough, because no problem I had was never allowed to be bigger than the ones that were once yours,
That would mean you’ve failed, or so I hear.
You didn’t need me to be a good child, and I didn’t know what good meant,
You just needed to believe you were a good mom.
My existence is the one test you were most determined to pass.
But you took all the good,
And I don’t think there was ever enough for the both of us.
Maybe in our next life, I will get a bigger ration.
Maybe in our next life, I will make you proud of yourself.
