an inkblot blooming inside her

last night i wept
in my daughter's
bedroom
while trying to sleep

it is a guest room now
or it was supposed to be
i am gradually 
making it into a shrine

she has been kidnapped
or she has been brainwashed
or she just hates me because
she is 15
all i know is
i did attachment parenting
which was awful
and apparently
it didn't work

i keep thinking about 
when i was in my twenties
and this psychic 
told me i wasn't supposed
to marry her father

i was supposed to be a single
mother
but i was stubborn
just like she is now
and i did the opposite

now here i am 
being comforted by ghosts
in the dark
as he slaughters my heart
using her as the weapon

in my past life
he murdered me

now he has learned how to kill
in the modern age
as a psychologist
and a pathological liar
he has turned her
against me

so easy when she is a teenager
did he even study in graduate school?
no
i did all his reading for him

now that she carries my pain
her own and
 the pain of my mother
​
this collective pain is an ink blot
blooming inside of her
her rage will be turned the wrong way
just like mine was 
towards herself
because dear daddy can do no wrong
when he is pulling the strings
to her marionette heart

this
will go on
for more generations

girls turn into women
who swallow grief
until
it turns into this black hole
of longing

don't worry
that longing
is just the dead whispering
all their regrets to you

they don't wish they had 
been more happy 
because happiness is a con
they wish they had been more compassionate
they wish they hadn't turned away
from all the pain
because what they remember

​are the trials and tribulations

​