As always, I owe everything to my English Teacher, Ms. Arkin. 

    Hopefully, I will have 30 poems at the end of the month and finally do something with myself. 

There was a boy 
who promised me I’d never be alone; 
and oh, 
how I was a slave to that suggestion. 
I wanted to be loved so desperately
that I didn’t mind the way the shackles dug into my wrists, 
I needed to be wanted so hungrily 
that I gasped excuses out of lung that were full of water. 
I made myself okay with the notion of being used
because at least I was useful, 
and I planed a future faker than your feelings for me– 
How did I
never want to be saved?

 I wonder if my future will consist of this-- 
if I'll always have nightmares of burst levees and floating homes,
or if I'll always whisper the other women's name,
Katrina, the Homewrecker. 

My mother stoops over a kitchen sink,
watches the water make a whirlpool as it escapes down the drain. 
She thinks I don't see her being sucked down with it,
that I don't notice her drowning in her own murky thoughts.
 wonder if she sees pieces of our old home being swept away with the suds and leftover food,
if she sees her life being swallowed by a gasping mouth.   

Does she wake to watch her own hands scrape her life down a path she never wanted?
My father found a reason in the other women,
my mom lost everything.