resurrectionwisdom

How I Spent My Easter Break

By Laura McCollough Moss

Ever the Good Mother

or so I assumed

as I tidied and scrubbed

baked and shopped

careful to select

to convey welcome

attention to preference

and comfort

unintentionally

 making the fatal mistake

of expectation

A misguided effort

to mend

the apparently irreparable

result of my

abiding,

smothering love

Twenty year old home video

aiming the camera at a

car-seated toddler

whose disinterested gaze out the window

makes the cajoling

"Do you love your Mom?"

over and over

all the more humiliating

This need runs deep

not connected to you

and starting

long before you came along

but you were supposed to fill it

And you've grown to resent me

hate me even, I'm sure

I'm a childish writer

a wannabe intellectual

I don't act my age

I'm delusional

naive

ignorant

An unsafe, unreliable confidante

bound to leak

secrets

in the hunt for affirmation

Setting this down

I think I hate me, too

how could it have gone so wrong

Time to snap

that brittle yardstick

look deep inside and

start over

There's an anger simmering in me now

unloved

unrecognized

unappreciated

it's time to learn that comfort can only be found

within

too staggering a burden to place

on anyone else

So I won't wait here

to be told of my

shortcomings

I won't come begging for the report

I'll be busy

licking my wounds

on a yoga mat

maybe some travel

more conscious writing

Surround myself with other imperfect people

who understand

This whipping post

has closed up shop

and you are free,

Child!

free.