[poetry] to the lady who owns the house where i sleep
To The Lady Who Owns the House Where I Sleep.
I am not your daughter.
Just because your own girl
has no sliver of respect for you,
you who lets her stay in your house
beyond the limits of independence,
even as she yells and curses and
throws her own spawn into your care.
You cannot make me your own,
I am not the respectful child you crave,
I am not the independent bird who’ll fly back
to comfort you in your old age,
I am not the one to love you in her place.
~
I am not your daughter.
So do not talk to me of diets,
jogs-around-campus, job-related stress,
of finding places-in-the-world or life ambitions.
Do not invite me to sit with you at mealtimes,
do not tell me I look better in the yellow-ruffled blouse,
do not -
stay up and worry -
if I don’t turn up when time comes to sleep.
I am the girl who pays money to dump my things
into the small, windowless room in the corner,
take electricity and water,
and all your hospitality for granted.
~
I am not your daughter.
If I were, I would not answer your queries
with the small self-effacing kindness and
polite-sounding words.
I will be as a stone unyielding,
keeping you in the dark.
I will not smile at you, nor take your calls,
I will take your concern, with a condescending smirk,
and twist out benefits from the thing we label love.
If you were my mother,
I will take my life and leave
and keep it separate from you,
cut you off as I would a necrotic limb.
As I always did.
--- from the sweet girl who is actually a horrible person. Dontcha know?