she was gone by the time i was four,
then there were others,
that came and said, i will be your mother
but they forgot me when they put
their mother-daughter outings on the calendar.
almost good enough, but not quite enough
to get an invitation to the beach
or the shopping or coffee to talk about the day.
good enough for advice, but
not quite good enough for time.
this should have faded by now,
this feeling of being forgotten,
you’d think by thirty you’d be finished”
with childish things like belonging
and motherly love and girls nights.
but here i am, writing some shitty poem
about what it feels like to see your
sister and her mother travel to the beach
and share jokes and shopping and time,
while you sit on a couch, wishing you had a mother.
she was gone by the time i was four.