Sweet as Candy: A Novel in Verse

Wonder

Sometimes

When I lie in bed at night

I wonder about my mother.

I wonder what she first thought when she looked down at the test

Knew for sure that one of the worst nightmares a teenage girl could face

Was becoming her reality.

Did her hands shake?

Did she cry?

Or did she do nothing at all

Throwing the test into the garbage

So she wouldn’t have to look at it?

I wonder why she decided to give me life.

Was she too scared to do anything else?

Could she not afford a visit to the clinic?

Did the ghost who is my father tell her she had to have me?

Or was there a warm place in her heart

That told her she could have a child

Making her think that she loved me?

I wonder what she thought

When I was first handed to her by a smiling nurse.

Did she feel sorrow?

Did she think she had made a mistake?

Did she think about giving me up

The first time I screamed?

Or did she cry tears of joy

Feel pride for the fact that I was her daughter?

I wonder who she saw

All of the times she yelled at me for no apparent reason at all.

Was I the shadow of my father’s phantom

Mirroring his betrayal

In the icy blue eyes that were not hers?

Did I remind her too much

Of her own mother

My namesake

The woman who let death tear her away from her child

Without ever saying goodbye?

Worst of all

Did I echo the things she hated about herself

A little girl who was on a not-so-fast track

To the dismal road her mother once walked down?

Or was she right

In saying I was a bad, bad girl

Nothing but an ignorant child?

Most of all

I wonder what my mother was thinking

When she raised her hand

And forever changed our lives.

Was she fed up with me

Not caring about the consequences of her actions

As long as I shut up?

Did she mean to do it

Looking for a quick way to get rid of me

Once and for all?

Did I deserve what I got

Causing her much more trouble

Than I was worth?

Or is she somewhere

Mulling it over as well?

Sometimes

When I lie in bed at night

I wonder if my mother is sorry.

Does she wish she could talk to me?

Does she love me?

Or does she wish I was never born?