Twisted Legacy

by Cheryl Merrick

Lacking a sense of self,
the child-mothers
cling to their daughters.

Frightened by a world
they have no skills
to cope with,
like drowning persons,
they frantically claw their way
up the souls of their daughters.


Lacking emotional attachment,
they exist - empty- 
unable to empathize 
with another's pain;
unable to give,
or receive love.

Sensing the hopelessness
in their cold dreary world,
but desperate to survive,
they remorselessly cannibalize
their daughter's energies,
until she is left as desperately
empty and blank as they are
to pass on the twisted legacy.