“What about when I yell? It's just words, it's just words,”
She is egging him on, but he is stubborn and hurt —
Says, ”It's a matter of volume, not the content itself,”
So her voice gets quiet and very, very low,
And she calls him a “stupid fucking piece of shit,” asks if he likes that,
And he does, he thinks that's better
Than when she banged the knife against the wooden cutting board
Five or six times shouting how she “just wanted to be heard.”
A meltdown — Or a tantrum — Or something completely disgraceful if it were anyone but her
(Especially if it were you, because you are only excuses.)
So she can have outbursts, be violent, claim silence,
And the tension wasn't cut with that knife, only heightened.
“Nobody listens,” yeah, you've tuned out her screaming,
Cuz it's white noise, blank slate, base paint:
Meaningless.

“Do you know how hard I work? Do you know what I do for this family?
Do you remember the story I told you as children
Of the mother bug who worked her whole life to feed her young?
Of the mother whose last gift was her body as nourishment?
She lay writhing in a cave, swarmed by her own larvae, eaten alive —”
And it is no longer an allegory —
You are the larva, getting fat off her gifts
That she bought with sacrifices you never asked her to make.
You are the root rot, something festered beneath the surface,
Making you dizzy with shame and spores and self-pity,
And you say you would not want to be a parent, because “It seems like an awful job.
It seems that no good comes from it, none at all.”
And she says “It's hard work.”
And she says “It's easier to take care of yourself.”
There is no “but” that follows.

“I wish you didn't talk about being queer all the time.
I wish you didn't make it your whole personality.
What if I brought up how I’m a woman in every conversation?”
You’ve learned that this is usually a rhetorical question,
And quietly, you think maybe she means some things shouldn’t be mentioned,
Because she is queer too, and does not celebrate Pride;
She dresses like a woman and asks what’s on your friends’ birth certificates.
You’re on the precipice of your thesis, unfinished and unwritten,
Since your voice shakes too much when you breach these topics anyway,
So what’s the point when she’ll always be louder and bigger and right?
You try to make distance between this person who made you
And the Saran Wrap boy she will look at but refuse to see
(Eyes glancing over, stretching plastic ‘til it tears.)
Maybe you wanted to be different, be “special,”
Or maybe she was finally wrong, and all you wanted
Was a chance to exist without feeling embarrassed.

“I'm worried about the quality of your character, like, you don’t know how to behave.”
Like, you might be the embodiment of dreams disproven,
Evidence it was for nothing, her hopes pinned, hung, and wasted
On you, you degenerate, deviant, disappointment.
You tried resenting that, but you’re still crazy, still lying
About what you think the truth is since, allegedly, apparently, you said
That you “can't tell what's real anymore.”
She said “the quality of your character,”
And you might not even be a person, just her simulation —
She holds more substance, she is realer than you will ever be —
You wanted her to not think those things, and that wanting spilled into everything else.
You want to be real? Now you want it too much.
Now you need to explain yourself, in a short answer document, at least one paragraph
Everything you did wrong. Justify your claims,
But beware: If you explain it for long enough, she will grow bored,
And you will end up right back where you started.