I remember Mama
When the primal scream
Was all the rage.
Ironically and quite literally
Past the somberness and nervousness
You felt
At my unwelcome birth
As I took my first
Battered baby breath
Bursting baby life, once again
Cradle the crib that rocks
Cradle the baby that walks too soon
And talks too little
Cradle the crescendo of emotional wreckage
To follow
As baby after baby
Took its emotional toll on you
Cradle a lifetime of wanting
Looking in every lost and found
For you

This is the conversation continued
Distilled with candor
Comported with clarity
Time has imparted
More real
Less resentment

I can see now
Your displeasing wasn’t personal
Even as it felt that way to me
My gains may have been small
But they were big to me

So many years have come and gone
I’ve learned once again to stand on my own
Yet still, I question if that’s true
I guess in some ways
We were alike
Me and you
But,
There were so, so many differences

I lived tucked away
In ephemeral world of ideas and thoughts
So many books
So many mysteries.

Not by choice
Headfirst, I came in that way
You lived in the world of 3d-
Kids, diapers, doctors and such-
Yes, I know how it sounds
But you would be wrong
I was never a snob
I wanted to share everything
You didn’t want to know anything
You never asked
And I never offered

I needed you to paint me with the colors of love
And not the color of green
I needed you to love
Not envy me
To make me right not wrong
For being me
And not you.

I needed you to see me.
This though
Through the eyes of love.

I needed to forgive you
To forgive me
For all the resentment I felt.
And I wanted to say
In my own way
I am grateful that I
Chose you to be
The mother in me.

And I cried
When I wrote this poem
Because it was
So close to home.