As someone with a strained relationship with my own mother, I really appreciate the emotion conveyed in this poem and can relate to it a lot. It does an amazing job of portraying the narcissistic mother, which sadly a lot of us have experienced.

This is really good, to me it depicts well a strained relationship. Complicated feelings between both of you, but knowing you still have each other.

Or maybe it is an unsavable relationship, but you know that part of it will always be part of you.


I've been dealing with complicated feelings about my relationship with my mom recently, so this spoke to me on some level. Thank you OP :)

I absolutely adored your use of imagery, especially in the lines
(“my tongue too thick to remember what her love feels like” “molding my tongue around a lover” “only in the mirror does she acknowledge me”) they really helped to develop the theme of suppressing and diluting oneself in order to feel affection. The third line was very effective at describing the mother’s narcissistic behaviors, and the poem as a whole I thought did a great job at capturing the struggle of the modern feminist Christian woman. Keep up the good work!

This was an amazing poem!!! Your opening line left me speechless 

“The way I pay for tenderness with my sweat and sanity”  is a line I feel a lot of people can relate to, because we’ve been taught to think our worth is measured in what we can provide for someone else.

Other than the opening line, my favorite line was “only in the mirror does she acknowledge me” I have emotionally distant parents so I related a lot to this line. Great poem overall!


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the lack of capitals and punctuation is on purpose :)

this is amazing. it’s very emotional too. only thing I’d fix is use capitals, and proper punctuation!

I like this poem a lot.  I have some similar thoughts about my mother and I hope that poetry helps you to heal.

the way i pay for tenderness with my sweat and my sanity.

she has taught me to be a good christian—

even on days i wasn’t holy

the behavior of molding my tongue around a lover and pleading for another day has been ingrained in my head,

along with her holier-than-thou voice saying 

**“i love you but i don’t like you”**

&amp;#x200B;

i am my mothers child

the one she has tried to outrun but always comes back to

only in the mirror does she acknowledge me,

my tongue too thick to remember what her love feels like

&amp;#x200B;

i am just like my mother the way 

we have been taught to throw ourselves 

out to the wolves—

*damsels in distress that cannot be saved.*

 

* [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/ufz3z8/comment/i6wxncn/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)
* [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/ufqhod/comment/i6wxxzb/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

I AM MY MOTHERS CHILD