The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Mask of Mother
by Donna J. W. Munro
Complicated love stems
From growing in the gore
And fluids of a woman never made
To love a fragile thing.
.
She’s a Leo, the story she’s always told you
Even when you wanted nursery rhymes.
Claws tipped with poison
Teeth blunted by years of biting
Still strong enough to strip flesh
From tender thin bones.
.
She was broken when I came.
Divorced soon after and man
After man after man paraded
Through our lives, carving off
A bit of the pleasant face
She saved for special occasions.
.
I hated her for so long,
So much I almost became her.
I hated my skin because it
Looked like hers.
I abused it with boy after boy
After boy after boy.
Drinks, smokes, drops.
I overwhelmed my shame.
Drowned it.
Only confronted it when she
Blew in full of elemental rage,
A cold front made of accusations
And storms of deflected pain
That stripped my years
Until I was that
Squalling, bleeding newborn,
Tiny and red, against her
White cliff body,
Crushed against its crags,
And longing only for a
Soft, warm spot to land.
.
Her mother’s mask peeled
And beneath something finer,
Porcelain and fresh.
A new woman in age.
.
I didn’t know her, but
Like a doe after a storm
Still had to tremulously
Trust the sky to warm.
.
I learned to love her new face
And my own skin.
I forgave but still remember.
I remember ever drop of blood.
.
Now she’s my child, born not of gore
But of wasting decay.
The edges of her mask peel,
Bubble, and curl
As she forgets herself.
Underneath is a frightened little girl.
A naked, trembling child,
Red and whimpering, against the white cliff
Of my body.
I try to be a warm spot,
A landing for her
When she forgets herself.
.
I try not to let my mask of
Smiling, dutiful daughter
Bubble and curl,
Peel away under the heat
Of my own sublimated storm.
The cold front of exhaustion.
The bitter frost of my memories
As I wipe away her tears,
Her shit, the mash of food
Running down her chin
Like the gore of birth
Gone rancid.
.
Complicated love stems
From rotting in the gore
And fluids of a woman
Fading into the gray of forgetfulness.
.
Forgiveness, fragile or not,
Is just another mask
To cover what I’m
Holding in.
.
Fiction © Copyright Donna J. W. Munro
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from author Donna J. W. Munro:
Revelation: Poppet Cycle Book One
In a dark future, people with money live in doomed cities and use the recently deceased as repurposed servants and workers called poppets.
Ellie DesLoge is the teen heiress of the company that makes and distributes poppets–your basic reprogrammed flesh robot complete
with training chips and kill switches. If Ellie does everything her Aunt Cordelia says, she’ll have a life of wealth and power. If she chooses to be what is planned for her, life will be perfect.
Everything she ever dreamed. But something about her sweet poppet Thom goes against what Aunt Cordelia and tradition have taught her. Will she choose to believe what everyone knows is true or will she follow what her heart tells her about Thom? Her choice will change the world.
Spreading the Writer's Word 