Her tight, unkind face and concealed pinches hurt my inner arms and my wrists, causing my winces and flinches. Her cigarette breath-laced voice tickles my ear, which makes me laugh, seem joyous to those who are near. But, I'm horribly itchy, skin burning with confusion. And she's kind and bitchy, brain blazing with delusion. They think she's playing, just joking. If they were closer, they'd see I was almost choking. They'd draw back in horror at what's being murmured: You're so stupid and ugly, you selfish little brat Shut up or I'll pound you when we get home... What do you think about that? She whispers in my ear and she digs half-moon nail wounds into my upper arm. My mind sends out alarms with white-hot pain that drowns my brain. But onlookers don't see anything but happiness. They walk on by, smiling in their ignorance; They're blind to her guilt, not her innocence. As they get closer, she glitches-- the witch switches personalities again. Again, she’s my “friend.” She tells me she loves me, loudly, proudly, crowding me, like a black cloud over me. After they've passed, she lets out a gasp and gives me a harsh grasp. She whispers she hates me, berates me; she deflates me as she inflates me with her poison, She "loves" me. She HATES me: I call this her "affection injection.” From this infection I need protection. This mothering is smothering me wIth its dichotomy. When we're alone, life's full of possibility: Who will she be? Is she a metal mommy Rhesus monkey all locked up with no key? A cage of cold, dead, dread nothing but her past hurts in her head? Or a raging banshee, screaming obscenities, heinous word potpourri, over something imaginary? Or, my favorite! She’s a hovering drone, a helicopter of hell, no kind voice, always a yell, watching, waiting for me to make mistakes, to blunder then attack me with wrath and all of her hate, her thunder? Oh, but I can see the sickness of her special wickedness. Everyone's as amazed by her perfection as I am dazed by her rejection of me. For her public self is put on a shelf when we return home to privacy. Her mask gets discarded and again, I'm bombarded. I'm bamboozled, swindled yet again, wondering if she's a foe or a friend. The cracks in the porcelain mask have grown with the pressure of keeping her secret-self unknown. What will she do if it ever gets shown? I convince myself that soon everyone will see. I'll be safe! I'll be free... But, she's got almost everyone fooled with the stories she's told… I’m the bad guy, the bad girl, the demon. I’m the scapegoat, the sensitive one, the one who needs fixing. Did you know the world turns and yearns just to see what she'll do? how she feels, how she thinks, and who, who who? like a fucking owl, and always, with that slick scowl, always wondering what everyone is doing, what they're saying, who they're screwing, what they're "really" thinking, who's abstaining and who's drinking. On an on, get me off this haunted carousel It’s over and over again in this hell. She cares about no one...not one soul... not even herself! She's just that cruel. She has just one care for you to still be there. For someone, it doesn’t really matter who, to keep feeding the beast within her. This is the only part that glimmers, that shimmers. There's nothing else there; it's completely bare, a vacant hollow of a tree that you just keep hiding, providing special treasures, life's pleasures inside, hoping one day she'll feel something except her own pride. But there's no life, only strife. You give of yourself over and over. You find life’s jewels and gems to present: a smile, a rainbow, a piece of clover, a song, a shadow, and then it's over. For she rejects all you sent. It's called dumb, stupid, pointless garbage, a pile of rubbish, a pile of shit. Nobody in your life really gets it, this narcissistic mothering bullshit… because what she shows everyone else is PERFECT. Sometimes your own siblings can’t even see it. She missed your whole childhood because she was sooooooooooooooo misunderstood! She cared too much. She felt so deeply. She loved too hard, but it always seemed cheaply. She had to outdo you. She had to see through you. She had to out-glow you... all eyes on her, not you. She had to protect you, to dissect you, anything but to connect with you. And, at all costs, keep you from yourself, from all your wealth. She had to keep you close by sheltering you from anything but her. She suffocated, she placated, she ruminated on anything, nothing, everything. Until you couldn't take any more. Nevermore, Nevermore! we screech through the night. Us, daughters of narcissistic mothers, we unite! Hold my hand; I'll hold you tight. Nobody except you can understand this fight. To have a mother like this is to possess the world's most empty abyss in your own heart in your own soul... how much you try to fill it, it's still a whole hole. Until you finally walk away and don't ever look back… Until you're free to find yourself At last, at last!