Appreciation Post-Pubescence

"I'm scared to death, too"
she choked out with eyes

becoming porcelain dolls',
unfathomably gleaning.

I wanted to be the man we were
discussing I wasn't becoming.

But she reigns supremely over me
and my cardboard cut-out bravado.

So I wept lightly, crystalline eyes
finding her gaze a trance... but turning

away anyway. And as I search New York
for a roof and a wage, for my maturity,

I know--or hope--that she wasn't just
babyin' me when she enriched our embrace

with "I'm here every step of the way.
I mean, c'mon:" a smile, "I'm your mother."