Mama's Sacrifice Poem by Chip Schaller

Drove her girls home from school that May
Seemed like just another day
She always liked their after school songs
But she woke that day feeling something wrong

Turned the corner, opened the garage door
Someone was laying in pools on the floor
She saw through the glass it was her mate
The gun and whiskey sealed his sad fate

Anguish erupted with bile aftertaste
Her love and dreams in an instant erased
She suffered in circles of emotional pain
Haunted by visions of those crimson stains

She couldn't allow his daughters to see
Whisked them away but nowhere to flee
Left with no choice but live in her dad's home
A widowed disaster, afraid and alone

Returned to his daily, drunken abuse
She had no escape, felt there was no use
Beaten and battered in alcohol rants
Her girls tucked in hiding like terrified ants

She searched for and found disastrous release
To stop the voice, make the tolling bell cease
A bar she could run to, where she could hide
Kindred spirits in glasses inside

Sat down by a man with crystal eyes
She returned his gaze with trembling thighs
He swept her away in a satin embrace
Her heart raced in circles, a lost paper chase

Months passed by from that one night affair
A son grew inside her, a gift of despair
Shamed by a bar parking conception stain
But her love for him could not be restrained

She wanted him to live, to be set free
To receive the gift of new destiny
Not doomed to suffer with her in that cell
Sentenced to a live out a bottomless hell

At birth, she sobbingly gave him away
A living abortion, a love castaway
The rest of her life spent in tortured wonder
What ever happened to her boy blunder?

Decades past by, then a stranger's letter
She hoped for once it was something better
She fainted after she read what it said
Flooded by the dam that burst in her head

It was a note from her son, and it began
with comfort, he'd grown up a contented man
Concluded with love to her he hoped would suffice
"Thank you, Mama, for your sacrifice"