•      Top Notes*
  

A pool of milky oolong spills from my burnt lips
An exit wound
of the things that will never return to me not mine I
stare down the scar as to reach
the beginning of an apology instead
I am met with the sickly sweet milk you would only know as a child
with a mother who held you to her too long
too tight and
so I pull the worry from my mother and tie it around my neck
quietly sentencing myself as a beggar
for her mercy it strangles my cries it pulls my body forward it keeps me
warm in its amber glow

•      Middle Notes*
  

The buttery liquid slides down my throat as I
swallow my mother’s dreams
with the ease of someone who has accepted their fate
Ambitions readily in ignition melted away
as my mother stares down the barrel of my gun
before you blink the bullet
sinks between her eyes
Her heart at my feet and all
you can do is stare and reach for her hand

•      Base Notes*
  

A bitter note presses my tongue with guilt as I have learned
the price of desire is meeting grief wherever you go, mother
your ghost sits across willing me home how can I
say I can not face what I have not become how can I
say although I have already broken your heart I cannot
yet break mine
This is for the careful dreams we picked from the field ten summers ago
child dreaming, heavy in your arms

the tea leaves have been waiting out in the water asking to be more