Please mom

Please, mom.
can I just be me?
can that be enough for you, mom ?
can it be ok that I like music that is experienced while dancing in a crowd and screaming til my lungs bleed and you like music that is experienced sitting in velvet seats in complete silence ?

Let just me be enough, please.

Because even though I know I don’t exist to make you happy,
every bone in my body has been wired to try until they break.
I can’t seem to stop reaching for your standards,
no matter how much therapy I go through or how many years go by
and I think the costume for who you wanted your daughter to be
might just kill my spirit.

And I swear,
I swear,
I am ok scraping by and not owning my apartment and not going on vacations three times a year and buying secondhand clothes and not being able to hold on to a relationship for more than twelve months and having friends all over the place and I swear that
is luxury to me.

And I swear I am ok alone.
even though everyone around me is partnering up
and I’m past thirty
and alone feels more and more like lonely.

But, please, please, can you let just me be ok for you?
even though you wanted me and a husband and two kids ?
because I wish I could tell you about lonely.
in fact, i think you know more than most what lonely feels like but-

it will never be enough for you to have a lonely daughter who finds luxury in inexpensive things, will it ?

Yet here I beg,
again and again,

please.

I need you to try to stop changing me.
because one day I might let you,
or one day it might break me.

and I don’t think either would make you happy.