turning transgressions into tar

two days ago, i texted my mother

overripe half-truths about something old:

an owed refusal, or intoned silence.

i was indignant & ungrateful

& soaking my toes in resentment

for who i am & who i am yet to become

behind the phone, 

my words were muddled by tears

& infected with knock-kneed points i 

let stain in an unburied shoebox for years. 

old complaints turned stale from good therapy

& growth, now fresh again for the holidays.

a truth: i tarred her heels in blame to mask the truth.

the truth: i wronged myself. I transgressed myself. 

i am a mother & still a daughter

to a mother who is still a daughter,

& this is all her sowing has reaped her:

A burden, a broke from a baby & bills,

Too depressed & lucid to feel sorry.