but she's still your mother
cw: sexual assault, suicide, mothers
when I was four
I dreamt of a diner in a desert
red sand, red sun, red sky.
I ran without knowing who I was running from
took shelter inside
no one inside
alive, at least.
I hid under a table
between salmon skin booths
and a pile of bodies
naked, pink-fleshed, women and children.
she found me under the table
naked, both of us
I had nowhere to run.
I like to think I woke up then
but my fear of mother's touch
says otherwise.
age eight
I finish my piano lesson and wait outside for mother
she texts me
says she can’t pick me up anymore
seems more sorry than usual
I walk alone to the station
and board a train
it is a long way home.
on a family cruise
our cabin surrounded by security
shouting and commotion.
mother had lost too much at the slots
said she’d throw herself overboard
I’m just glad it’s not cops, like it would be back home
they always scared my little sister.
my mother would sing to me each night
The Carpenters, Doris Day, The Sound of Music
she was a singer, and a writer, and an artist
and a storyteller, and an explorer, and a lover
she had so much life to live
before she had us.
when they split up the first time
and we stayed with mother
she left us alone with her boyfriends
old, white, feverish for asian blood
strange men
in strange motels
in strange towns.
her boyfriends never lasted long
but my memories of them
always did.
when they split up for the last time
six years later
when mother finally lost her custody
three generations of wealth drained
I became a light sleeper.
at night, I bolted the windows shut
in case mother tried to climb through
and steal our spare change
or come to my bed.
she would rattle and bang on the glass anyway
or threaten to kill herself
if we didn't let her come home.
I still sleep light.
my mother was beaten by her parents
bullied by her older brothers
and still she cared for them to the very end
never a bad word.
sometimes I wonder if I should be more grateful
if I should reconnect with the “only mother I’ve ever had”
as other mothers have described it to me
well, not me
but their own fear and shame.
“she’s still your mother,” they say.
was she ever really a mother? I ask.
I don’t see a mother
I see a martyr, a creative spirit, a kindred soul.
she and I are in the same business
of alchemy,
of transforming pain to beauty
only I don’t know if she knows that
can only hope
that these years of my silence
and it can only be in silence
help her see that she's still loved