It Sucks for Mothers

A father can wash his hands of it all right there at the door. 

Mothers for nine months sometimes house fetal future serial killers and sex offenders. And they are stuck, visiting hours forever.

Maybe, I became less of an overall threat.

A father can send you a postcard with a scribbled on heart and sleepless nights are successfully evaded. 

Mothers have to stay up; the porch light on and a hand hovering over the receiver. 

Fathers can die abruptly from icy April roads and a drunk driver. Everyone at the funeral will mutter thanks and gratitudes it wasn’t instead the mother. 

Rose colored glass covers both eyes in all he once said or did. No further examination needed, no resentment dried cement over my chest, or lasting conflict furiously typed out elongated or just screamed out in several short shrills on the phone before the dial tone conclusions.

Her pain is etched in her skin. She doesn’t age handsomely and is forced to stay thin. Her value is in constant question, as a mother and even as a woman. 

I should of developed empathy more emphatically as a child. Fall in line with the rest of them. America isn’t interested in a TV husband with softer features, sitting on the couch always, only moveable for their weekly shower.

I don’t think I could protect her, him, or them. 

I can’t even properly navigate this world unscathed.

My voice is inaudible, I let strangers speak for me at the doctor’s and allow them to cut in line at the grocers. 

How dare I even fantasize of someone small and lovely adoring me the way I adored her, until I had to stop.