80s parents priority:
Are they fed?
Do they have roof over their heads?
Their daughters grew into mothers
who ask:
What's wrong with Mr. Bare Minimum?
He works.
He comes home.
He doesn’t beat you.
My mother nods, relieved.
Good.
Safe.
Looks at me, her arms crossed:
What more could you possibly need?
Bare minimum taught me to want.
It taught me that “safe” was just lonely.
And lonely is not an emergency.
Lonely doesn’t leave marks.
At least not visible ones.
Sometimes I think
wanting more
is not courage.
It is disloyalty.
To the women who survived worse.
To the rules that kept us housed.
To the voice that says
don’t ruin a good thing
by asking it to be beautiful.
Dare I want more?
My throat closes
like even my body
was taught not to ask.
Yes.
I want so much
it would have sounded
ungrateful
in the house that raised me.
Good.
I have the guts
to be ungrateful.
Call me:
Spoiled.
Too much.
I agree.
I am too much
for a system built
to keep women alive,
not adored.
I will not be
yet another mother
handing the next
a slightly reworded version
of “settle”.