Mother

A person to tell me:
Eat more
Do my homework
Clean my room

A person to scream at me because:
I didn't get a hundred on my math test
(my worst subject)
I was fighting with my sister
(even though she started it)
I don't do enough around the house
(even though I do more than anybody else).

A person to:
Be my chauffeur
Cook eggplant parmesan
Keep me busy on everlasting snow days,
when every road is closed and the air is the color of gloom
Take me shopping,
to buy the new fall lipstick at MAC
Tattle to on my sister when she didn't do her Social Studies
Tell I can't fall asleep,
even though I know she has been sleeping for two hours
and the last thing she wants is me knocking on the door.

She stands in my room
asking how her new long black velvet dress looks
pulling it away from her and asking if it is too clingy
her little feet sticking out from under the front
of the heavy black fabric
and her brown short hair
and her brown eyes make her look more like a friend
than my mother.

by Kari W., New City, NY