Lamb

Taylor sings

"Every eldest daughter,

is the first lamb to the slaughter."

I know this.

I am the eldest and only daughter

of a woman who didn't want a girl.

"Are you going to try for a boy?"

she asks right in front of my daughters,

as if they aren't enough.

No man has ever done her right.

Raped by my biological father.

Cheated on, betrayed by my stepdad.

So I don't understand her obsession

with bringing more into the world

they live to ruin.

She has two sons-----

one she favors,

one she curses:

"you're just like your father."

And she has me,

her unwanted only daughter,

the one she told

she should have slaughtered.

I carry her venom in my blood,

wonder how much

this woman will break me

before she learns to bend.

I tell my daughters

they are enough.

They are not lambs

to be sacrificed on the altar

of her patriarchal delusion.

And maybe, someday,

my mother will stop forsaking me,

will see I am a lion----

powerful, fierce

as strong as any man.