If I had been soft, like your sister, like my mother,
Maybe you would have stayed.
In the beginning, I loved it,
Being your doormat, letting you tread your muddy soles across my spine.
It felt like belonging, like being needed,
The comfort of being worn thin beneath your weight.
But the day you returned,
A little grayer, a little heavier,
And I a little grown,
I realized I could no longer be your doormat.
Because if I were,
My daughter would become another man’s doormat,
And my son would open a shop selling doormats,
And I would have left my fight to my seeds.
They would call great-great-grandfather the collector of doormats,
A line of souls pressed flat,
Generation after generation,
Feet wiped clean on the backs of those who didn’t know how to stand.
But I refuse.
I will not be the beginning of that line,
The spine that bent, the mat that wore thin.
Let my children stand tall,
Let them tread new ground,
Not on the back of another, but on their own two feet.
