Please Stay

Warm words floated through the air

As her back chilled my soul

Her shiny eyes begged forgiveness

But her mind wouldn’t let go

My arms could hold no comfort

So I bent on knees for heaven’s help

But she only walked away

Society’s rules wouldn’t allow her to stay

My eyes burned the color red

And as much as I begged

Mute were her ears from any sound

Knees to the ground fist pounding the earth

But it didn’t help

Not even the voice of agony

Mother

“The problem with you, Jennifer, is that you’re afraid to fail and so you just don’t try.”  I can remember my mother saying that to me when I was still in grade school.  I thought she was the smartest woman in the world and quite possibly psychic.  I don’t know why I was always afraid of life as a child.  I was shy.  Not the normal shy.  The awkward shy… so shy that I didn’t speak much… at least to adults.  I never raised my hand in school, and I absolutely hated when it was my turn to read aloud in class. 

I’ve come a long way, and Lord knows I took the long road.  I don’t know why.  For whatever reason I felt that I had to learn lessons first hand, even though, my mother told me different.  “Pay attention and you can learn by observing other people instead of making costly mistakes.”  I was a hardheaded child.  I always tried to take the short cuts.  It wasn’t until my eighteenth birthday that I started to take life seriously, and that was because my mother showed me the door and reminded me that she’d fulfilled her obligation as a parent.  (That just made me chuckle.)  Tough love, she called it.  I learned quick, fast, and in a hurry that day.  I miss her so much, but I’m grateful that I still get to see her in my dreams.