the once-hip mom

hor­mones start­ed it all
tak­ing her in­to pu­ber­ty
whether she liked it or not
mak­ing her the ob­ject of the male gaze
at an ear­ly age &
she found the af­fec­tion of many,
she par­tied hardy,
squeez­ing her­self in­to the tight­est cloth­ing,
snort­ing the best shit she could find
with 100 proof veins,
pump­ing loud mu­sic in­to her throb­bing
eardrums,
stay­ing up 24/7—
rag­ing against the dy­ing of the light
&
when it all fell back on it­self,
she got cleaned up
she got a ca­reer &
when age start­ed to slow it all down,
she set­tled on a bloke who
had ac­tu­al feel­ings for her &
the sto­ry­book was opened—
soon a new life was on the way &
with an al­ready hap­py house­hold es­tab­lished
the two de­cid­ed to have it,
fum­bling their way in­to par­ent­hood
as par­ents will do when they first start out,
still try­ing to bal­ance some sort of
life that they once had
while de­vot­ing ev­ery sec­ond to the rear­ing of
the new daugh­ter—
af­ter many sac­ri­fices &
many sleep­less nights,
the years passed & mom saw her wrin­kles
be­gin to race neck n’ neck
with the ar­rival of lush brown hair now turn­ing
grey—
her daugh­ter, how­ev­er, be­gan to bloom,
just as she had when she hit such an age &
the sneak­ing out to see boys,
the first time caught drink­ing,
the squeez­ing in­to tight clothes &
the com­plete break­down of what once seemed to be a
healthy moth­er-daugh­ter re­la­tion­ship,
found its way in­to the once-hip mom’s home—
now moth­er starts to look at her daugh­ter with jeal­ousy &
she gets not one io­ta of sup­port from her own moth­er
who finds it hi­lar­i­ous that fi­nal­ly the boomerang made its way
around &
now the shoe is on the oth­er foot,
where the frus­tra­tion & re­spon­si­bil­i­ty has been hand­ed down
to the daugh­ter who once caused so much to her own moth­er,
now suf­fer­ing at the whim of
her own teenag­er.