the apron strings

too much mothering

becomes

smothering, not love.

the child stays attached

to apron strings,

always in the shadow.

his life

becomes long and hard

in finding a job, or 

intimacy.

who or what can

compare to mother,

the bar set

high and wide.

these children stay stuck 

in childhood,

never straying far

from the home,

the room they were set

in when born.

thirty years passes

quickly in

the blink

of a mother's selfish

eyes.