it may have taken two years
of counting and miscounting
of piling up paperwork
and learning to manage
twenty five-then-six-now-seven-year-olds,
of arguing parents
and camping trip disasters
and never forgetting how to forget,
but here i am,
Girl Scout troop leader,
just for a moment feeling like
I’ve got this down,
I can do this,
I can count and organize,
I can be just what I need to be
in the eyes of
my daughters
their daughters
the daughters of the world
(or world, the one we want to give them).
Girl Scout troop leader
Dear Mother
Dear Mother,
I know you think
that being a Girl Scout
troop leader means
I can be nothing less
than a perfect role model.
But underneath every
perfectly polite
member of society
lie the cusses,
frustration,
and brutal honesty
that you hate
for me to share.
Can I have a place
to fully expose
myself
without worrying about
what you think
considering
you never could take
the time away from your
(true love) work to be
MY
Girl Scout troop leader,
but rather,
were a cussing, raging,
violent mother
behind closed doors?
Love,
Daughter
P.S.: Thank you
for taking the time
to see me for who
I really am
and, alas,
relentlessly criticizing me.
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