Absent Words

My grandmother's daughter

bought her

first pack of cigarettes on a bet...

30 years later

still hasn’t quit yet

though she tried many times

she could never succeed

like the way she did

when she was quitting on me

he and she

but they could never quite agree

what today would be

should they love her or hate her

I find myself safer

not even thinking those things

not even thinking goes and brings

me any closer to peace

and we aint closer to each

and others find it necessary to preach

about blood ties and such things

but she waived her rights to such things

cause she ain't right but such things

don't cloud me as often

little girl tears don't drown me as often

and the past was a wash

but I am alive and I orphan

any pain that held me

any words that tell me

I’m my mothers child

cause I’m my mothers wild

nights of abandon

a play on words, birthed in that fashion

and she never offered me

any other choices

and i still hear their voices

offering up her excuses

but excuse me it's useless

i'm not so easily convinced

she never was what they said she was

never did what she said she does

never loved like she said she loved

and I know they hold on

cause they needed to believe what she never was

but it dies there for me

never went along

with lies there for me

eyes wet with grief

nope I got cold

and you could not get at me

and it's the same to this day

she never meant to leave

him and her use to say

but it feels to me she was never there

so she couldn't go away