How Long

Call it a poem, or call it a song

Doesn't matter to me what format 

I'll state the ways you've done me wrong

Was a doormat for all too long

You found your power at our expense.

Nobody seems to like it when I publicly vent

But to care less would be hard for me.

The fact that your eyes are open

Isn't proof that you can see 

What's really going on.

I wonder how long this cycle has been going

Ponder how many women have knowing

Or unknowingly passed it down.

If what goes around comes around,

Then why did the past fail to haunt you

Let me tell you, I'm shattering this cycle, 

more than broken, it's through 

If the past is the past and the future is what I choose,

I'll make it better for me and mine.

But what if it's not?

What if I'm the kettle yelling "you're black!" right at the pot

Ignoring my own truth, or maybe being blind with ignorant bliss.

The real question in all this is, 

Why am I the first to realize?

Night after night I heard my mother cry,

Just as she heard with hers.

Until the sadness turned to rage, 

aimed at people too young for words,

And then it's a part of them too.  

How many more children will suffer this abuse,

At the hands of women who love them so?

And how far would a mother like me go,

To make sure she doesn't do it to her own girls?

I'd give them the world, and take myself from it too,

If I thought I couldn't be different you.

I was always the one to put my two cents in,

Even though  unwanted my opinions grated nerves

I'm sure they didn't help, my stinging words

The unavoidable truth, you bet your ass it hurts

As it damn well should.  

I'd trade in both my so-called mothers if I could,

Fuck their excuses, and all the bullshit in the past

Your kids shouldn't have to suffer for what you couldn't hack

Emotionally damaged rubbing off for years to come.

You may be that dumb, as to think it's okay

Giving all the excuses to explain away 

I'd like to give you mine, each with the swing of a baseball bat.

But if I were to go and do that, I'd call that pot black again.

I swear all this misdirected rage will end 

With my little family who I hold close now.

I'll burn every bridge leading into my town

To keep it from happening again.