Mother,    your heart is a tragedy, 
& your family tree a well of pain. 
I think all daughters inherit their wounds 
From their mothers before them.
Gaping gashes are our inheritance,
The currency of our survival. 

Mother,         i am picking
At the bruises and scabs on my skin
They are the very same patterns that 
I traced on your body when i was a child, 
They say beauty is pain, but they neglected to mention
That only poetry can make pain beautiful,
And my pen has run dry. 

Mother,           we are something so ugly
Turned so, so good. We are the warmth 
Of an open fire and the welts it leaves on your skin, 
We are the brilliance of a sudden spark
And the darkness that is left after it, mother, 
Albert Camus said that beauty drives us to despair,
& you are living with no hope in your eyes.  

Mother,    i am a language that you can’t read, 
& I am constantly writing a new life for you, 
One where you are one of the girls with big homes
And full bellies who read books by the firelight, 
One where you don’t give birth at 14, one where 
Your back is not so crooked from a lifetime at their feet. 

Mother,        you were a force comparable 
To a hurricane, do you think they know that given the chance, 
The world would have been at your feet, the lifetimes 
That you could have lived are taunting me in the shape of my uncle’s tongues, 
Curving into words that almost sound like what a waste,
Sounding almost like what she could have done. 

Mother,         do you think 
I will ever be free of the sudden sadness 
of knowing that no matter what I do
I cannot save you? Your adolescent shape is slipping out of 
My grasp, over and over and over again, 
But my fingers keep coming up just short. 
I can still see a little girl in your eyes sometimes, 
Who was hoping that someone would come save her. 

Mother,         there is no happy ending 
To your story. Your scars are faded over on my body now, 
And the pain is an ache instead of stinging fresh. 

Mother,     are we beautiful now?