Mother L
Some days my mother and I don’t speak,
We’ll pass each other in the hallway,
and
we will pretend that we are on good terms.
The hallway wallpaper is torn up – white flowers,
stubbornly clinging to the wall,
even with those damaged petals and all those ugly stalks.
The Blonde-haired therapist asks about Her, and I don’t hear.
Instead, I tell her (this therapist, never my mother) about my rage – all man made,
organic and rotting in this big body of mine.
I didn’t rip the wallpaper mum, I only thought about it.
Once She asked me why I didn’t kill myself right,
I… didn’t have an answer then.
But I think I do now.
I never really wanted to cease, only to escape,
Made aware by memories of fleeing reality, unwillingly.
I bid myself to stay, and she never listens,
Is this how it’s going to be forever?
Do I have to keep burying the daughter I could’ve been?
Shovelling dirt while she speaks in my ear?
Scolding me for not eating well, or sleeping too little,
We are an amalgamation of pain,
playing relay with love
and racing against the clock.
There are too many she’s in this poem.
She gave us life, giving birth in the light,
But she endured so we could survive, hidden away inside.
I don’t remember all the awful things my mum’s done, only that She did them,
How long can I hold this anger for?
Some days I want to demand she apologise, most days I just cry.
I’ve never been hospitalised, only ached for it in this god-awful room.
When the noose calls, we almost crumple,
(Almost isn’t an ego thing, we’re all subservient to death,)
Until I think of Her again. But She’s burying me this time – clutching the dress I never wore,
weeping into a crumpled tissue. Did She even know my name?
Copyright © Robin Anderson | Year Posted 2023
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