To my Mother:

Remember the New Years Eve fight around cocktail shrimp and southern fried catfish?

I told you, 'You abandoned me when I was Eight"

It's true I was wild but you gave up on me

Then you cried and aplogized for those lost years

The pleas that fell on deaf ears

in a place of hell, heat and step brothers

This was the night I wanted to kill myself.

I felt helpless like a prisoner being drowned

Bound to the waves in a sea of history.

You

still

didn't

understand. 

I doubt you do now... 

but I didn't want you to cry then. 

Almost a year later, I realized

you did the best you could.