What is pride?
A puffery of empathy
for oneself?
Pride, do you goeth before
the Fall? Or is there really no
Autumn at all. Just a false season?
Why was I
taught not to stand so tall so straight?
Bent by the bow, of daily gripes and ingratitude
for an unseemly fate of not enough-ness.
"Why oh why, were you ever born,
when you cause so much irritation?"
"You, not so little girl, are my thorn.
A reminder, I'd rather not be reminded of..."
"Why do you
remind me so much of my bad,
much lesser self?"
Who's this thinking these thoughts?
Setting me aside on a lower shelf?
Its not me. But these values were imposed as my own.
"Do not show pride, or I will break you down."
Is that what She said?
"But call me the best parent you've ever known."
"Make of me an example, forever shining,
recognizable to everyone. "
"You, child, live at my convenience."
"I will make of you a little me."
"We will get on, then, more pleasantly."
" And then I will love myself better."
Ah pride. So this is where your story ends.
Make your daughter a kind of enemy, maybe, barely friends.
Keep her at arm's length most of your life.
Keep her guessing. Here a little amending.
Here, a little more strife.
Then die before its finished.
Before all that needs to be said is done.
And I have been made Death's wife.
Mother, I love you.
Cried the pitiable child.
Copyright February 22, 2013. Written after a very troubling dream.
Sometimes dreams say what we mean, sometimes they do not.
All Rights Reserved By This Author
Melissa A Howells/Meloo Tilt-a-World