Problem Child

My mother always hated me deep down
in the pit of her stomach
where her emotions where kept under lock and key
and where the secret things
she thought while she smoked her Virginia Slims lived;
there, next to dirty thoughts about the mailman,
and cattycorner to her passion for photography,
was a small black seed of resentment with my name on it.
As I grew up the seed, too, matured
but it did not grow into some withered plant—grotesque and black.
No, it was lush like a fern,
spilling over, replenished.
Or like a lily,
so perfect in shape and color
that to the untrained eye it was love.
But I knew better and I let it thrive on small acts:
sleeping around, smoking weed, stealing money from her purse.
And I became just like her.

- Kristen A. Kutz