“You don’t need to defend her all the time”

I’d be rich if every time I heard that I magically got a dime.

A sentence said to me referring to my mother, 

A biological defense, from one mom to another.

Melissa and my mom have never gotten along,

Bringing out trauma and history, 

The context would never belong.

Insecure in her ways, my mother is a chameleon.

Changing who she is to better fit in.

In a crowd of people she's just another pedestrian,

God doesn’t drive her ways. No. 

It's a deep sadness from within.

Offset from a man who lives how he wants,

God is made fun of, laughed at, not to be taken seriously.

No choice but to hide, to avoid all the taunts,

Living my life how they want, where faith is a mystery.

She isn’t all bad though,

I’ll find myself having fun when she's around.

Then my sister walks in and out it’ll go,

For one reason or another, someone is barking like a hound.

Every so often she’ll step into the waters,

“Learn anything new at church today?”

So I tell her, seeing if she bothers,

And to my surprise, she knows, but it's far away. 

There was a point when she was aligned with my father,

One with herself and her faith.

God led her life, her morals, and knew when to stop her,

Now no one stops her, digging herself deeper by the day.

She feared becoming her parents,

A couple who bickered and fought,

Every chance they got.

So she left my dad,

And I’m glad.

In turn she pushed her kids away,

Trying so hard to connect.

A shallow woman, never opened up, who just had bad things to say.

A mother who doesn’t know her children's respect.

I will always love my mother as much as any son should,

But I’m grateful for a second.

Fixing problems in ways my mother never would,

A second mother who's a little more pleasant.