All of the Above

My mother tells me that she's made of trees.
That is a not a cheap metaphor used to hook you and pull you towards the story line
My mother is sick.
She has pulled skin away from muscle to tear away the splinters and glass living just below the surface
She has shaved beautiful ruby hair away from imaginary bumps with imaginary leaves inside
My mother tells she she is made of trees.
This is imaginary but the scars and scrapes she left deserted on freckled melanoma flesh are not
My mother has a hard time accepting what is real and what is not
In cases like today, I am not of any importance, and that is okay.
I prefer these days of silence to those when she nearly convinces me to pick up a razor too
See what has settled in my bark, uh, skin
I am not my mother.
I am sick. But I am sick like my father, resilient and feisty he solves his problems with red bull and piano notes
He is nothing like a forest where my mother is becoming one.
He has not cut his skin in DIY exploratory surgery
He had slaughtered rough hands on winter days working with metal pipes
He has had human hands inside of his body... A lot of times
He is in chronic pain, he is sick, but he knows that.
My father says he is sorry for giving me such a life before saying he loves me on the phone.
He doesn't understand that those two ideas mean opposite things.
My mother is becoming a forest and my father is made primarily of titanium rods
So how am i supposed to feel normal just being made of blood?
I've been told before I look just like my mother until these observers see my dad
They see the roundness of his nose and the widened eyes staring, understanding and they know.
I am his daughter before anything else, titanium, I suppose, is part of who I am
But I have deep green eyes with sunshine spilled inside of them.
Forests roll inside of me holding hands with heavy metal and lakes of plasma
The lead pipe does not fall far from the tree
I'm hoping tomorrow is a razor day
When she calls me hoping I have checked for trunks on the bottoms of my feet and I tell her, not today, mommy.
I'm hoping tomorrow is a day when my father forgets to apologize for this life,
So I can have the chance to say I love you too.
I may not be a rainforest or a desert or metal or glass
but
I am a combination of all of this in a package tied up with curled hairs and shaded freckles.
My mother is sick
My father is sick
I am sick too, but I am not them.
I am all of the above.