Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep
A promise digs a hole and plants itself
In a heart like a flower, a morning glory, deep
Don’t be responsible for uprooting somebody’s dreams
Please don’t make promises you don’t intend
to keep
From a child we gather the broken stalks of
Promises and pull the scattered weeds of truth
Dandelions blown away and never taking root
At eight, she waits though bedtime was a
Half hour earlier and again he’s late
She tries, eyes hazed and throat clogged
with cries, to
Tuck herself in, but the blankets tangle like
Spiderwebs and geometric lines, binding
Her, reminding her that laws like promises
Can too be broken, trampled, he trampled
Her pretty garden of irises, tulips, and
Morning glories, she waits for her bedtime story
At nine, falls asleep with the Brothers Grimm
in hand
Never knowing what happens to Gretel and Hansel
Seeds unwatered, little plants destined to die
A broken promise, deadly and poisonous as a lie
At ten, she hides the pain from sneakers too tight
The check didn’t come, broken promises like
Petals stick inside her mind like Double
Bubble gum
Eventually, the bubble gets too big and like
Hot plasma, invisible, it pops, its effects seen,
she pulverizes
The garden ’til all that’s left is rocks
Big boulders of anger that keep her on a chain
Relying on no one, painting everyone with blame
At nineteen, he smiles and gives her a rose
Rose of seduction and though she despises flowers
It’s the meaning she holds dear and falls
Headfirst into a carnivore’s lair, never
Taught to beware and at twenty, holds her own
Planting seeds of morning glories in a garden born
Grown inside a little heart, planted far too deep
Mommies don’t make promises they don’t intend to keep