The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2018

I could write a thousand metaphors For my Mother and still none of them Could articulate the way she stole pieces of me— Of all of us—each time she rearranged herself; The way she carved the phrase, “Do not let people tame you” into the tombstones Of our childhood. All the while she morphed Words and webs and worlds in our minds, Twisting things so upside down and inside out It took me seventeen years to realize It is never okay to compromise the lives You created for a get out of jail free card. The night I almost died—covered in my own vomit, Eyes in the back of my head—my Mother Turned Mary Magdalene begged me to give a shit. Instead, all I heard was the Book of Romans And her favorite line: “In this Hope, We are saved.” Had I been able to breathe, I would have laughed Because my Mother’s hope had been the noose I had hung myself from Begging to be saved. 204 The Meadow