Wasted Effort

Your mother carved space into your heart,

You promised it would fit her and others too,

But She overfilled it with laced kisses,

Until you could not stop smiling,

Stop bleeding into Her sheets;

Your mother taught you how to breathe deep peace,

She embroidered the secrets into her lullabies,

But She has you pierced with confused furies,

And your nights are fused into fevered daydreams.

Your solace is not gold.

Stop throwing it at Her shadows!

It will not purchase paradise!

You would chase Her into every rabbit hole,

Down to the red-lights of broken neighbourhoods,

Out into the charcoal wasteland, you now call home.

You know you would.

Your darling mother tried to teach you how to brush, rinse and floss --

Did she anticipate all the blood that would stain your teeth

When you bite into Her,

Drink the arsenic in her veins,

With the fierce petitions of a naked slave,

Worshipping Her savage heartbeats,

Your every gulp music to Her madness.

You will breathe Her in with every sigh you take,

She will be born again in your lungs

And She will rip you from the inside,

She will tear down the totems on Her way out,

The very same ones your mother placed to ward off nightmares,

Those were nights when you were too young to know

How perfect it is to be destroyed

To be flayed open and made into a caricature

By slender, lazy fingers

Fingers that would scratch away the innocence,

Nails that would cut open your wrists

Until your arms were paper paintings of haunted trees

And your eyes the tortured red of Her lips,

She will eat you

With the cold intent of a sadist,

And you will cry Hallelujah,

Even as She replaces your intestines

With butterflies high on acid.