Mother,

No metaphor can describe what I'm feeling.

No bird longing for freedom nor the flower growing in a rotting land will suffice.


You don't need to show your shame in sharp words,

your dismissal cuts deep enough.


I told you who I am and you erased it like it was written on a white board,

black dust sticking to your fingers.


My voice, echoing on deaf ears.

The walls, stronger than me.

Better listeners then you.


I imagine tearing off my flags from the closet door.

Ripping then to shreds then sobbing over their loss.


I hang them there to remind myself to be strong.

How weak is it then, that one word from you left me staring at them in silence.

A dull pain replacing the thumping of my heart.


How weak is it then, that this poem, which will never reach you,
left me crying hot, dripping tears,

the first rain of the season.


You told me you accept me, a contract with white words written between the lines.

You told me you don't mind, I didn't take you for a liar.

You hugged me and I believed everything was fine.

I still do, in the silence between rain drops.


Did you know that a scoff can leave purple green bruises?

Healing slowly and alone.


You must know that words leave scars,

even if they are being said absently with the wave of your hand.

Perhaps especially so.


I told you who I am and your first reaction was to tell me I'll grow out of if,
as if I had discovered myself yesterday.

I explained and your second reaction was to treat it like an ideology,
as if it was ever a choice for me in the first place,
something to be learned.


You refused to listen further, I doubt that you've ever started to.


You didn't understand my fascination with wings taking flight before I told you.

You still hadn't connected the dots, the shackles of ignorance at my feet.


We are the flower.
Your behavior- the rotting land.

The growth- feet firmly on the ground, wings curled around my body, twitching to be let out.


I wonder, deep at night, if I will ever find the right metaphor.

I know that I won't.