Mary was a talented, beautiful girl,

With a future brighter than that of most individuals.

Young Mary would have been a happy child,

Had she only attempted to meet her expectations.

Innocent Mary’s first word muttered was apple sauce,

A two syllable word deserving of recognition when spoken by a baby girl,

Yet Mary’s mother could not hide her disappointment

When Innocent Mary failed to say “momma.”

Eight years down the road and Mary had begun to explore the world.

Ambitious Mary developed a liking towards music, sports, and cars,

An expert in anything and everything,

Except ambitious Mary could not identify in her a desire to paint nails with her mom.

Though astonished by her daughter’s rapid intellectual development,

Ambitious Mary’s mother was disappointed to not have received a more feminine daughter.

Further down the line, Mary began blossoming into a beautiful teenage girl.

Magnificent Mary was the epitome of perfection, yet when Mary ate a tad more than usual,

All she heard were criticisms and complaints from a critical mother about her body

Being too skinny, too fat, disproportionate, or downright ugly.

Never was magnificent Mary seen for her true beauty

By herself or by her mother.

When the time for college admissions came rolling around,

Mary had become quite accomplished.

Accomplished Mary was accepted into Cornell, Yale, and Columbia

Top of her class and top 99% of the nation,

Yet accomplished Mary had failed to get into Harvard;

The only person who cried more than Mary that night was her disappointed mother.

Mary vowed to work a hundred times more diligently,

And she did, for diligent Mary became the youngest CEO at the age of twenty-five.

Diligent Mary bought a home for her mother, yet when she came home,

She was reproached for not bringing home a husband.

Finally Mary did get married and she was much loved by her caring husband.

Loved Mary was as happy as could be;

She had the home, the husband, the money, and the accomplishments.

She had it all, but when Loved Mary visited home once again,

Her mother asked where the grandchildren were.

Little did Mary’s mother know Mary was infertile

And incapable of meeting her expectations.

Mary was now still young and innocent, ambitious, beautiful, accomplished and loved,

But she still had not satisfied her mother.

And the lost Mary asked herself,

“What more can I do?”

Lost Mary had seen her mother cry on too many occasions

In disappointment of her daughter’s failures,

And pain her mother she could no longer,

So the loving and misled Mary took a gun to her head,

And ended her list of failures that night.

In her eyes, she had been a failure of a Mary,

But Mary’s mother had never been more disappointed; she had lost the grandest accomplishment of her life- her pride and joy, her beloved Mary.