To know that you, of all people, feel the need to tell me that I am a failure
\nin all that I do,
\nin all that I am,
\nhas been the deepest disappointment of my life.<\/p>\n
I struggle, day after day with myself, inside and out,
\nbecause someone taught me that I wasn\u2019t good enough.
\nThat I wouldn\u2019t be accepted as I am.
\nThe way that I think.
\nThe way that I look, talk, or express myself.<\/p>\n
I was told not to grow up fat and ugly.
\nTo be polite. Quiet.
\nPatient and humble.
\nNot to seek praise or believe it.
\nIt would give me a \u201cbig head.\u201d<\/p>\n
I still have a hard time saying \u201cthank you\u201d when I\u2019m complimented.
\nInstead, I smile and defer politely.<\/p>\n
Now, when I reach for my dreams,
\nreshaped into something new and beautiful,
\ntwenty years deferred,
\nthose phantom messages hiss in my ears:<\/p>\n
You aren\u2019t good enough.
\nThe field is too small.
\nYou\u2019ll never make it.
\nYou need something more reasonable to fall back on.<\/p>\n
Some of those voices aren\u2019t ancient specters. It isn\u2019t enough to grab me with your claws as I try to rise. You tell me, \u201cYou hate me.\u201d<\/p>\n How can you say something that cuts deeper than anything else? And then the voice of reason steps in But still\u2014<\/p>\n How did we end up here, Mom? Your words cut me now like they did when I was a child, I volunteered to care for you. Even as you fight me, I mother you And even as you remind me, again and again, For as you so often remind me: To know that you, of all people, feel the need to tell me that I am a failure in all that I do, in all that I am, has been the deepest disappointment of my life. I struggle, day after day with myself, inside and out, because someone taught me that I wasn\u2019t good enough. … Continue reading Tethered<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"issue":[6885],"class_list":["post-2540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","issue-6885"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 12:16:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2540"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2549,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2540\/revisions\/2549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2540"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThey haunt me every waking hour that I\u2019m not plugged into something,
\ntrying to drown out the sound of your doubts,
\nthat are still pick,
\n\u00a0<\/span>Pick
\n\u00a0<\/span>PICKING
\nat my soul,
\nmy being,
\nmy creative essence,
\nwhich needs to flow.<\/p>\n
\nYou dig in.
\nSnag me.
\nPull me DOWN,
\n\u00a0<\/span>Down,
\n\u00a0<\/span>Down.<\/p>\n
\nAfter all that I do for you,
\npolitely, quietly, patiently, humbly,
\nday after day,
\njust like you taught me?
\nThen I remind myself: you\u2019re projecting.
\n\u201cYou hate me\u201d really means
\n\u201cI hate you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nand tells me it isn\u2019t really you speaking.
\nIt\u2019s the disease.<\/p>\n
\nThis strange reversal of fate
\nwhere I became the parent
\nand you became the child?<\/p>\n
\nbut I have to pretend they don\u2019t.
\nI have to love you through them.
\nI have to be bigger than them.<\/p>\n
\nI knew it would be hard.
\nI didn\u2019t know I would lose so much of myself
\nas I lost so much of you.<\/p>\n
\nhate me,
\nforget me,
\nI will tend to you and
\ncare for you as a mother should.<\/p>\n
\nnot because I am lacking the love you didn\u2019t give me
\nbut because I learned how to love in spite of you.<\/p>\n
\nthat I will never hold children of my own,
\nI give you the love I saved for them.
\nAs I wish you would have loved me.<\/p>\n
\nWho else would I give it to?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"