Sweet Mamma.
Mother dear,
Just where the fuck were you?
An away day ticket
On the first train out from me.
Didn't forget to pack your toothbrush,
But you left plenty of baggage behind.
Was that all I was,
The stain of passions
That broke the waters of your tears
And shattered the illusions of love?
The blood of teenage virginity
Broken in to end the innocence.
Well they say blood's thicker than water,
I shed a bit of both to the memory of you.
Just an eighteen month old child,
The one you tried to hold like a doll
To the dry nipples of flat breasts.
Proofs to the crime of under age sex?
Left to a drunken father,
Whose only idea of responsibility
Was to shut the door to the closet
After he'd pissed all over my clothes.
Did the valium wipe your tears away,
They sure as hell couldn't mine.
Easy to misplace emotion,
Best forgotten you said .
You weren't the one who hurt me most,
Don't flatter yourself,
But the absence of decades
Made the pain grow fonder,
And time isn't always the healer.
So you waited, you say,
For the smoke to clear.
Seeking your lost 'love' child;
Still looking for something for you
That you never learned to give.
You had more than twenty years
To work out what to say,
To show me what I was to you.
It had meant the world to me;
And the first line you fed,
As thin as your excuses,
Was that you sure never expected
Me to turn out like 'this'.
'This', strong enough to cry the tears,
'This', with courage to speak my truth,
'This', For all the fears of loosing you.
'This', I was.
As real as the wound you left behind.
My dream of a mothers consoling smile;
The light of an angel,
From a half remembered face,
To soothe this fragile heart.
You took even those hopes away.
The mother I was told was probably dead,
Who was a whore, a liar, tramp.
And yes they lied, a bit,
But they weren't alone in that.
You said you'd hoped I'd grown up right,
Well maybe you wouldn't know right if you saw it.
There's that word you don't like again,
Responsibility;
Facing up to facts,
Just another bitter pill for you,
But it's what I took for myself,
When I let the anger and the pain show through.
Now here's where the denial ends,
A fresh limb toren from the rotting family tree.
You played once more for happy families,
Past swept under the carpet,
Locked away in the loft,
But I was playing for higher stakes,
Climbing those ladders,
avoiding the snakes,
The healing you've yet to know.
You took the cork from the bottle,
And the lies began to flow,
I drank to your health,
Then spat it out for mine.
And that's when I checked out,
No glass raised to your memory,
No pills to dry my tears.
Just an away day ticket
On the first train out from you.
It took a lot of courage,
Finding me,
No thanks for the excuses.
When you're paying respects,
It helps to know the meaning of the word.
I really tried with you,
Every line I wrote, every sobbed word,
Trying to reach through to where you were at,
But here's my last to you mother;
To me, Oh mumma dear,
Just who the fuck were you.
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This page was posted with kind permission of the author
on 18th March, 2000
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