By Sienna Finney

The Core

for my mother

I left your body with the same

grooves in my fingernails as you

bitten to the quick

bringing comfort when everything else

was out of control.

My teenage years almost destroyed us

while we sat in short sentences

eating marmalade on toast.

Everything you said was an attack

and I was always shrill

trying so hard to use my voice

to sever the umbilical cord.

You collected china from Wales,

while I built shrines for dead rock stars

and decorated my shoes with sharpies.

You worked a 9 to 5, picked us up from school,

went to the grocery store, and made dinner

without any kind of appreciation,

as we shoveled food in our mouths

mumbling answers to your attempt at conversations,

and hurried back to our rooms.

Time made it clear

how much you did

how much you tried

and sacrificed for all of us,

especially yourself

and how there is no other comfort

quite like sitting next to you

eating marmalade,

with all of our differences

holding us together.

Instead of You

I don’t want to forgive you

for all the nights I cried myself to sleep

because of something I buried so far down

it took nearly a decade to surface.

I don’t want to forgive your mother

who was supposed to be protecting me

but all I can hear when I hear the past

is her voice scolding me,

“Stand up straight, suck in your gut,

put your chest out, tuck in your butt....”

Telling me over and over,

“You’re a spoiled brat”

She must have been miserable

to be so resentful of a child.

And I can hear her right outside the window

talking about an AC unit

as you snuck into your sister’s room

and put your fingers up my shorts while we slept.

But I was too scared to tell

because I was sure your mom

would blame it on my cut off shorts

and tank top-- instead of you.

I don’t want to forgive,

I just wish you didn’t exist.

Sienna Finney is a poet who has been writing since she could. Originally from Nashville, TN, she graduated from Austin Peay State University with a degree in English in 2008. She has been published in The Red Mud Review and Prism Magazine. Sienna currently resides in the mountains of Asheville, NC with her life partner and black cat, where she supports locally owned businesses, BLM, LGBTQIA, Women's rights, equality, tree hugging, and making mix CDs for friends.

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The Core | Instead of You