Omm (Maltese word for Mother) - Kathryn Pratt

I hate you.

Every essence of my being despises you.

But it is not that cut and dry. No, it is madness.

I hate what you did,

I hate who you are,

I hate who I became because of you.

But most of all I hate that I have to hate you. I needed you to be the light in this bleak world, instead you were darkness.

Unrelenting- it engulfed everyone and everything.

I couldn’t breathe, it was stifling. I still can’t breathe, but at least now I can scream. At all of itat your lies, your facades, your fabricationsat how fucked up it all is.

I just wanted you to love me, Mommy.

All of me.

Not just the person you wanted me to be but the person I actually and truly am.

Why couldn’t you love me? Why didn’t you love me?

Everything was a lie, even the good times.

It was just a way to make me stay and I did, for the longest time.

But those five minutes of happiness soon turned into nothing. I couldn't understand what it meant to be happy around you because I knew that later it would be used as an excuse.

You made me happy so you got to hurt me when you weren’t.

This was the “happy” home you built and cultivated.

I still feel the sting of your hand across my face.

I yelled at you to keep going- to keep hitting.

I was never going to give you the satisfaction of my weakness. I was bleeding at the mouth begging you to do it againbecause you were never to see how much this broke me.

I was 13,

14,

15,

16, 17.

I was a child.

I was your child.

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Kathryn Pratt is a 18-year old college student living in Michigan. She uses poetry as a means of release. It's a place for her to filter all of her emotions through. These poems offer an inside peek into Kathryn's life.