Where are you, Mother? You’re gone an awful lot.
My sisters and I are wondering whether we’ll see you tonight or not.
You promised we’d have dinner at six thirty on the dot.
It’s nine thirty and bedtime, and not a glimpse of you I’ve caught

Where’d you go now, Mommy? I sang my best at the concert today!
You always told me to sing like an angel, and you’d tell me if I did okay.
This time my conductor told me I was great, but I didn’t hear you say:
“That was great, ‘Caela!” Because you weren’t there, not this day.

Where has my Mom gone? I ask this all the time.
She’s not the person I remember when I was a year shy of nine.
Before you started going out, before you started this motherly pantomime
Back when it was not an act, when everything was fine.

Why do you yell so much, Ma? You make me so mad!
You yell about my imperfections, and you make us all so sad.
I can’t control everything mom, I’m trying my very best.
Yet all I hear is screaming, and I can’t sleep anymore or rest.

Where are you, Mama? I want the real you back.
This person in your place is not my mom at all.
My real mother loves me for me, and doesn’t dwell on what I lack
All I want is my mother, nothing else, just my mother proud and tall.