Children Like Melting Pots

I see the way my mother
Grips everything around her,
Fearing it might slip away.
She grips the steering wheel,
She grips her purse,
She grips a glass.
Her knuckles turn pale. 

Her knuckles are so white
That they look like
Dried petals of the white rose
My father gave her years ago.
But like all things my father gave her,
It withered and wilted and died.

Her knuckles are so white
That they’re the same shade of
White as my father’s,
But her hands can’t be turning into his.

I worry even more that
My hands will be like his.
They will gift someone lovely with white roses
But when the night falls,
They will give nothing
But pain.

I see both of my parents
In the mirror.
My face is the color of their knuckles.
Maybe it’s a sign.
A sign that I was born from fists and blood
And rotting teeth.

I’ll thank whatever gods there are,
Every day,
That my eyes are my own.
I may be my mother’s reflection
And my father’s mistakes,
A manifestation of pain
That looks almost exactly like they do,
But my eyes don’t quite match.

If I could ever paint a proper portrait
Of myself,
I’d make my skin
The white of my father’s,
My hair the shade of my mother’s,
And my eyes their own shade of green.

I would finish it and burn it,
Probably,
Like a modern Claude Monet
Trying to destroy
The things I can never learn to love.