This Is My Mother. Poem by Jasmine Williams

She smelled of cigarettes
She looked like hell with legs
Her voice was laced with insolence
Always grating to my head

I was her irreverence
Destined to be forlorn
I was her insecurities
Waiting to be scorned

I was undeserving of I love yous
thank you’s or even goodbyes
Wasn’t good enough for anything more
Than her mockery and her lies

She couldn’t ease my pain
She couldn’t sooth my cries
She was my mother
and treachery in disguise

The drugs had her
The men had her
Life had her
Not I