“Welcome home honey,”<\/p>\n
A\u00a0mothers open arms spreading cigarette allergens around,<\/p>\n
I hold\u00a0my breath and bitter resentment,<\/p>\n
Enter her embrace,<\/p>\n
the essence of her, covered by a vice that alleviates part\u00a0of her suffering,<\/p>\n
who am I to judge?<\/p>\n
Survivor of violence people left unnoticed,<\/p>\n
I didn’t go through that,<\/p>\n
I just witnessed it,<\/p>\n
Excuse me,<\/p>\n
judgmental bystanders labeling\u00a0my family as broken,<\/p>\n
broken in what sense?<\/p>\n
broken- you grew up in poverty,<\/p>\n
broken- I didn’t think you would be so successful,<\/p>\n
broken- your mom does live in a trailer,<\/p>\n
correction- I grew with hunger,<\/p>\n
correction- I didn’t see you as worthy of my investment so I didn’t take the time to help you out,<\/p>\n
correction- my mom owns that trailer<\/p>\n
Thank you very much for your ill concluded observations,<\/p>\n
She may spend her paycheck on rent and cigarettes,<\/p>\n
but she answers my phone calls every<\/em> single\u00a0time,<\/p>\n I wish I could say the same,<\/p>\n “Mother, How are you?”<\/p>\n a question often asked with underlying guilt on my behalf,<\/p>\n the knowledge of her well being, so clearly visible,<\/p>\n “I am doing well, but let’s hear about you?”<\/p>\n She hides\u00a0her needs,<\/p>\n the hierarchy of knowledge has created distance between us,<\/p>\n education does not mean a lack of suffering,<\/p>\n my worth is not more than yours,<\/p>\n she shows me the room full of my awards again,<\/p>\n pride fills her eyes,<\/p>\n I \u00a0have a nice day with my mother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Welcome home honey,” A\u00a0mothers open arms spreading cigarette allergens around, I hold\u00a0my breath and bitter resentment, Enter her embrace, the essence of her, covered by a vice that alleviates part\u00a0of her suffering, who am I to judge? Survivor of violence people left unnoticed, I didn’t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":741,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/741"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26991"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27166,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26991\/revisions\/27166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}