There's a sad isolation in being an unknown quantity to those who presumably love you.

What my mother wished for me
The hope she pushed me toward
Was that I marry a rich man
She wanted me to have the leisure
The comfort
The lovely material things
She never had herself

What my father wished for me
The ambition that had him thumping lessons into my head with a book
Was that I become educated
He wanted me to have the choices
The polished veneer
The career possibilities
He never had himself

And we six children
Suspended between
An amoral English hooligan
And a lace curtain Irish Catholic
Were squeezed and hounded
Hammered and pounded
Pigeon-holed and molded
Into a shape suitable for nothing

They each wished us something they had wanted
But never got
Something they had dreamed
But never realized
Their missions unaccomplished

And they never questioned the wisdom of those desires
Or wondered what we ourselves might wish

It never occurred to them that we had our own dreams
Our own ambitions
Our own goals
And if it had
Ours wouldn’t have carried any more weight
Than morning mist

They’d have been relegated to the junk heap
Of foolish pipedreams
Of idealistic nonsense
Of castles in the air

Because we were only children while they were adults
And they knew better

But they never knew us.
SMT 07/11/01