Single Motherhood

Being a single mother and starting from scratch...

She said “I’m busting my ass to give my kids a small piece of what they had”

And I felt that.

Because I too

had my daughters life,

her friends,

her room,

her home,

her school,

her space

stripped away

as I try to make life work from a blow up mattress on my mom's floor.

Can’t check out,

Yet forced to be in the core

Called life.

And the place

Where my baby once laid

Is already filled

With a person that didn’t have to pay

The price of the lonely nights

The neglect, the pain, the fights.

But I rise

Selling off our clothes and what’s left of our possessions

To be able to live out

This

Life lesson.

And the only comfort I have

Is the Pack of Newports in my front seat

My pencil hitting the notebook sheet

My sick poetry

And the will to conquer and defeat.

For I am a single mother

And my Place

can’t be taken by no other.

- When I get back up, the Earth will shake, and you will tremble.