My mother has mastered the art of doubled edged dictions.
she has perfected ways to weave wounds with threads that bring you healing.
‘you are just like your father’ she says to me.
#bittersweetpoetry
Tag: mother
The ones who made mother bleed.
And I watch her, disgust pitting in my throat.
here, her desperation on display. On bent knees and red eyes. There is nothing subtle about this pain. She can not hide it.
‘Daddy, I know you can help me. you are my last bus top’ she says.
I can not hide my disgust. My throat bubbles,my ears hurt. In this moment I realize, pain can make you worship anything. Here, sprawled at the preachers feet, my mother is an example.
She continues her ritual, flinging herself on him as if her sorrows will leave her body with this gesture. He holds her, pats her back. Motions for one of his minions to bring her a chair. Mother takes this as bait, a beckoning…She spills the contents of her heart all in one breath….
‘My son is running mad, my husband has brought his mistress in the house, she has a child, my home is on fire…what will they say, what will people think?’
I have not moved from where I have been standing since we got here. Rage comes, it shakes me,I hold the church doors for support. Sadness comes next, it breaks me, brings me to my knees. I look at my mother, pouring her heart to the preacher man as he pats her pain away. She shudders and shakes, crying still. The preachers minions are oblivious to my presence. They are transfixed on my mother, listening intently with pity plastered on their faces. Who is this woman? I do not recognize her.
I weep, bitterly…
I dry my tears
I will never be her.
Not a soul.
Mother, all is well.
the sun is not kind.
but,uncles wife is warm.
Mother, my heart is full.
uncle says I’m grown, I’m a strong boy now.
he will teach me to trade,
I will work hard.
Mother, I am scared.
‘Its our little secret’ he says
I must be a man now.
Mother, I cant tell a soul.
No, it doesn’t hurt.
Today, I introduced my self to my mother.
“your mother must be so proud”
she says as I tell her I am a lawyer now.
I tell her the names of the kids in the picture on her bed post.
And that this is home now.
She nods and lets it sink in.
She asks about her son and why he never comes home.
Brother is a congress man now,
he hasn’t called in 4 years,
I cant tell her that.
She is a disease his career must never catch.
I am telling her about his new appointment.
“Who are you?”
she asks.
Storytellers.
Mother is a story teller,
stories are written in her eyes
in her smile,when she worries
when she laughs
when she cries,on bent knees
and they way she crosses her fingers
to pray.
How she prays,
how she prays for us, for father too
and father is a story but stories are for storytellers
I am just a child in love with stories and storytellers.
Mother is a bag of sunshine deep in winters hold
a luxury I am far too undeserving for.
She is home and I am a home sick child.
she is peace and joy and much than dictionary words
could explain.
Mother bleeds too much
she bleeds love from every artery her body holds
and her veins grow too jealous
so they bleed love too
Mother is a map of sacrifice
like how she goes hungry so even my nostrils
leak from my full belly.
and how she doesn’t sleep nights before
because she is at heavens gates
on my exam dates
cause success must be my only fate.
she wont accept less.
some days her voice is the only ritual
I need to stay alive,keep moving, not give up.
Other days when I give up on me,
it gives her fresh oil for extra prayers
she laughs and tells me
she tells me she has enough faith
in me for the both of us.
my strength feeds on hers till I”m bold enough
to believe my dreams are valid again.
Mother is happy dust and summer rain
and fresh sprout flowers in spring
and sister,friend,teacher,discipline instiller
a god, hero and a language many hear of
and few can fluently speak
My mother is too beautiful to be captured in lines
and ink and half baked poetry.
Pened in GENIUZ 