25.7.11

Drive


It's what I feel like doing right now.
Getting in my car and just going
god knows where,
because at least I'd be moving.
Forward, too.

And I can't stand the looks
those women give me,
wondering what the hell I'm doing
there, wondering why I'm lugging around
a five year-old, who looks way too
much like me.
I wonder if they ever think she's mine.
Sometimes their looks say they do.
Sometimes I want to just throw up,
because they give me those awful looks.

I know I don't belong there,
in that little office filled
with stay-at-home moms,
spoiling their children silly,
because they're all suburban
soccer moms and that's what they do.
They don't have jobs.
Homemaking is their profession.

What right do they have to give me
those dirty looks?
Why do I have to go
and endure those looks.
Those once (and twice) overs.

As they let their kids flop
on the floor and scream
in front of a room full of
strangers.
As they pick their nails
and grab at the arms of their
kids, who look rotten and rude
and also very upset.

As they chitter and gossip
about so-and-so's baby,
so-and-so's husband.
As the one woman who actually
appeared to have a job
complained and complained
about having to go to that job.
While the stay-at-home mom beside
her just cooed something hypocritical.

As I had a five-year-old hang off my arm
and ask me "how long do we have to wait!?"

I was waiting for my brother,
not my kid.
I was babysitting this clingy
monstrosity,
she's not mine.

So why the hell do these women
give me looks?
Why the hell do I have to
do this?
Why am I a summertime stay-at-home
mom-figure.
Why have I already had to pick up kids from schools
and feed them and help them do homework
and nearly forget to eat and sleep
due to this?

I don't have kids.
I hope I never do.
Because I'm already doing it now.

I feel like a middle-aged woman.
I hate myself for this.
I hate those ladies who
give me those cautious looks,
who wonder what I'm doing,
what's my role?

I hope I don't end up like Sylvia Plath.

Some small part of me is whispering
that I will.

Not to sound all angsty and heroic about
living and dying like some famous poet
(I don't even really like her)
it just seems like she was angsty
like me.

Yeah,
I said it,
I'm angsty.

I'm this angsty little girl
who feels like she's living
like a 35 year-old stay-at-home mother.

I even do dishes, and sometimes laundry,
I iron and cook,
and made beds
and clean the kitchen countertops
of the coffee rings left there
by the people who leave.

By the people whom I cannot talk to,
because they don't trust me,
so I don't trust them.



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