you have laid out the puzzles,
fixed the hot chocolate
in small pink cups placed before them,
popped the popcorn in the pan,
taken their small hands to form meatballs,
and set the table with
expensive wine, fine china,
everything that is beautiful and perfect.

we exchange the pieces of our lives
that mothers, daughters, friends, exchange,
handing them over as casually
as the French rolls you bought from the store
(dry, non-absorbent, bland as dirt).
i share my opinions as openly
as i know how, my heart set out
for you, mother, to remedy.

no amount of wine imported
from the Rhone River in France
will drown out the renewed realization
that the things i care for most,
the building blocks of my soul,
are blinded by the vision you have
of who you think i should be.

i exchange my words for silence,
then small talk that will lead nowhere.
it is safer for me to be that image
of yourself (the very part of you
that i despise, refuse to emulate)
than to cast away my weekend
with your distorted mirror view.