She had me in her palm, that sway of her laughing heart.
The sunflower of earth, giver of my life,
A peach scented woman, thick skin she’d cut open,
Hoping that the next passerbyer would heal her
Fill her with hope then,
She might know how to love me instead of shove me
Like a curtain,
But we didn’t have any of those,
Instead sheets hung loose over windows
And the world didn’t have to see in the home to know
That sheets are not curtains.
That a woman with six children hides in her room and
I’d never realized how broken she was
While I was too caught up in the whispers from the other mothers
They’d say “how unfortunate”
Then move on to the topic of sunday brunchin
I grew to hate them, and myself,
Was I trash? Can I be helped?
It’s all up in the air.
The air that never flowed through our sheet covered windows
And oh, my soul, I was there to see
The kind of woman they all thought I’d be,
I was there to see the real woman
Laying in bed at 5PM, hasn’t moved an inch
But her eyes stayed wide open.
There were times I thought she died
And I would cry
Because the relief sometimes outweighed the grief
And that’s no way for a heart to be broken.
I was a child then, my mother was too.
She is a child still and I’m now 22
I still fear who I could be, who I might be
If that grief should cease, let the light return to me.