When I am subordinate I cannot breathe.
My lungs narrow to whatever fraction of love
It is that I have inherited from my parents,
My hair blows in the wind, thins, and suddenly
I again hear my mother say that I am unsalvageable.

Morning comes for you to honor me and
Though I know you’ve ascertained my departure
As if you’re feeding a dog chocolate before it is killed,
Whatever warmth I enumerated is now de rigueur.

As if I were the clause emphasizing your poor judgment
You vocalize, to me, what you couldn’t to my father.
As if I were the wretched one tearing apart lives
You euthanize me– denounce me to a carcass–
And from what you’ve made me you’ve killed your grandchildren.

It is apparent nowadays that your hand reaches for mine.
So then it is also true that I bite the hand that feeds me…
But is it not also fate that I condemn you for it all?
We are not the same and by betraying your motherhood
I betray all women through the paternal urge to abandon you.

The naive child in me doesn’t expect her crucifixion;
I am almost eighteen. I know what follows this awareness.
Nowadays you reach for me with a palm of atonement
And, yes, this time it is an offering. This offering is sweet.
But rather amiably, I deny the strange after taste of your affections:
Your heart is a dark alley and I am the mutt.
I know how to survive and I know to disguise it as love.