Owed

Mothers should not comfort 

Mothers should not console

Mothers should not care 

Mothers should not kiss away our tears and call us beautiful

Mothers must be fair 

Mothers must be just 

Mothers must raise their voice to their children and threaten violence in exchange for obedience 

Mothers must instill expectations of disappointment 

Mothers must subject their children to the cold 

Mothers must strip their children from their coats and mittens and throw them through the frozen-over lake 

Mothers must watch as their children drown, must watch as their children loose themselves and return to the surface bobbing on their bellies

Then mothers must wade through the water and pick them up 

And Mothers must breathe them back to life

Mothers must wrap their children in warm cloth and set them by the fire

Mothers must strip their children of their wonder and glory they inherit from conception and expel the stench of holiness from their skin 

Mothers must be the first disappointment and pain in their life of they will crumble under the subject of ruthlessness

Mothers must, or their children will not survive the winter 

Mothers must, or their children will not survive the beatings

Mothers must, or their children will misstep one day with coats and mittens attached and will sink with themselves. 

Will sink into the moss and mud

Will be tied down with tall grass 

Mittens slipping and sliding in the effort to escape 

Coats emptying the lake into the pockets not sewn shut 

Will swallow water until their bellies filled pull them down like weights through the soil 

Mothers must or our children will be excavations 

Mothers must or our children eyes will be ravaged, their bodies plucked apart by the freezing water, their chest compounded under the resounding pressure of death

The water will reep the rewards of laziness 

The lack of doing 

The lack of action and harshness 

If mothers do not, the water will feast and force submission 

The water will laugh and scoff at the weakness of the child and take what is owed. 

If mothers do not, the water will.