Hardship

Hero or coward which one be you. I moved out into the world at a very young age. Not by choice but circumstance. Friends and aquaintances would claim I was strong and courageous, but really I wasn't . It was the desire for autonomy from strife and the feeling of being caged by an ungrateful invalid. I won't mince my words. The old adage "If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all". Well it stops here, only speak the truth, and the truth is sometimes ugly. The truth is beautiful too, for now I can reflect back on all that has past, and I can smile and I feel good. Not smug either, but authentically at peace. Still there is alot of ugliness to be shared not for woe, but to enlighten and embolden. I am brazen to say I had dissappointing parents. A cruel mother and an ambivalent father. They handed down to me a sense of hardship, as if it was, to be perfectly natural for our times in this nation. For a few years I was a slave to my mother . From the age of twelve I took on full duties in the running of the household. This comprised of cooking my own meals,washing the dishes, sweeping the floor after everymeal, doing the laundry, taking out the trash, grocery shopping , banking, vacuuming, and dusting everyroom and scrubbing the bathroom. You get the picture. I faded into walls as I flowered. I was pretty and popular, for a time. Then I became faceless as I turned my face to the walls. Even a youngster can turn bitter.

 Resentment fueled by daily dosages of anger fed from a bitter tongue. The serpent of demise strangled my soul. Do not forget I was only twelve, and I wished my mother gone.



MK
painting: Goya "Saturn eating his young"