Dear Mother

By Cheryl Marie Wade

Dear Mother

I will undeny the lie with truth you do not want to hear Even if you choke on it, drown it in alcohol, smother it with sleeping pills like I did, like I thought I had to because you said so with your denial. I will tarnish the silver myth of our lives: I warn you.

Because it is I who lived in the dirty underbelly where it stank of sweat and semen and terror, Where it stank of the cigarette butts you saw at my bedside. You saw.

I will speak of my betrayer whose hands you held as he whispered to me-- The sun rises and sets in you, Sweets. And without a blink of a brown eye, charmed the world, while at night he murdered a girl.

I warn you: I will speak.