Mother, Daughter, Pharmaprix

It’s still early in the season

But when I walk by the church

With the janky donation thermometer

Painted on its front wall

The red bar still looks so small

It’s still mostly white.

These days I’m just observing

Watching quicksand conversations

I see my friends backslide

And I’m waiting for a time when they’ll forget me

I hope they forget me

Because lately I can’t see

What I used to love so much

About this ugly room I keep singing to.

It’s Wednesday morning

In the parking lot of the Pharmaprix

I see a mother around forty-three

And her daughter, fourteen, fifteen

And they’re fighting in French so I can’t make out the language

I can just see the exhaustion on the mother’s hollow face

And how the daughter simply hates her

With that blinding, burning meanness only teens get

Like she has to

Like her mom did to her mom

Like we all do

And the mother loves her so much that she’s constantly terrified.

What she can’t say but is everywhere

Is a shivering plea

Possibly the same sentiment mirrored in each of them

'You’ve got the rest of your life to be angry

You’ve got the rest of your life to be angry

For right now, just pretend that you like me

For just a little while

Be nice to me.'