I was a wife
                              Who couldn’t cook

I was a mother
                              Who couldn’t swim

I was a wife
                              Who couldn’t fight

I was a mother
                              Who couldn’t look ___ in the eye

I was a wife
                              Who paid all the bills

I was a mother
                              Who couldn’t sleep through the night

I was a wife
                              Who acted like a man

I was a mother
                              Who couldn’t appreciate any man

I was a wife
                              Who was the hammer

I was a mother
                              Who was the captain and the ship

I was a wife
                              Who fucked so many men prior to getting married she lost count (I told him two)

I was a mother
                              Who was an ocean full of love

I was a wife
                              Who married a foreigner from 6.4627° N, 3.3997° E

I was a mother
                              Who lost her shape and looked like a front-facing little letter b

I was a wife
                              Who never had an orgasm before the age of 40

I was a mother
                              Who screamed at her children like they were crazy mother  
                              fuckers wanting to fight at a BART station bus stop after 12 AM

I was a wife
                                                  Until

I was the victim’s mother

I was the petitioner

I was a person

I was a human

I was an animal

I was an object in the shape of a daughter’s wound at the edge of the world

I was a piece of non-biodegradable plastic in the middle of an albatross’s gut floating clean across the ocean

I was a broken thing to be used and discarded behind an apartment building dumpster (they think it was 2C that threw it away because they were always leaving trash out)

I was a cuss word thrown to the wind after church

I was a dating app profile

I was a limb

I was an orifice

I was someone else’s plaything

I was a middle-age man’s middle-age fuck buddy

I was alone

I am a mother