By Coco Bone

I have always been told I am  

my mother’s daughter and I think

she might hate that about me.

Every insult she makes toward

 her own body is followed by 

a comparison of how much smaller

 than me she is,

Then she wonders why I

struggle so much to look at myself in 

the mirror. 

She will point out every facial 

feature or similarity we share 

and proceed to turn around 

and call herself ugly.

But oh how she cries

how sad she is that I don’t find myself 

beautiful.

But I am also unequivocally

my father’s daughter,

And I see her look at me with

the same disappointment. 

I hear it in the way she tells me 

that she thinks my dad must 

hate himself for his refusal to 

stop drinking as she drives

me home from the bar.

I pick up on it in the way 

she will tell me everything 

she believes is wrong with him 

and then mutter ‘you are so your father’ 

when she thinks I can not hear.

And I can feel it burned into my

skin every time I refuse to talk 

to her about it bothering me 

out of fear of being called cruel.

I think maybe when my mother 

looks at me she sees in me

everything she hates about

my dad and everything she 

dislikes about herself. 

Meanwhile I look at her and see

everything I am scared that I 

am destined to become and everything 

I will never live up to.