Told my feelings were fake
Laughed at for crying
Brutalized for refusing
Depicted as anomalous
This is my "home"

I exploded, caught a breath as I felt the silencing

Crossed volatile environments
Misunderstood ephemeral friends
Bullied, ostracized
Experienced injustice
This is school

I performed, in the illusion of shutting silencing

Living my curiosity
Knowledge is my strength
Reflexivity makes me grow
Embracing my difference
This is my refuge

I introspected, in the freedom of their paralyzed silencing

Meet mind-like people
Discovered my emotions
Explored my preferences
Dug my family history
This is my travel

I free-fell, as in my trust I hit structural silencing

Communicating humbly
Nourishing healthy relationships
Trusting my positions
Affirming my autonomy
This is my womanhood

Becoming a mother, I urge to gather the pieces for her freedom

breathed
through the slit of her mouth
where dandelions smiled
begging to be
uprooted, undone
in a cosmic sigh across this endless leaf, the Wind she
turned her back to us
what felt like a yawn across a fatal gorge
and down below, the tremble of her core
lifting up our dreams in outstretched fists
of flower dust, from a time before
we..
close our eyes in unison
breathe out
the tune   of our birth,
which our mothers' hummed in their sleep, our being
only imagined
in their unfathomed dreams

“Mommy, bees flyin’.”

I stop sorting laundry. “What?!”
My head swivels around to where my son is looking, where the winter morning sun
is streaming through the window.
“Oh! Oh. No baby, those are dust motes.
Just dust floating around.”

The look of wonder on his face never falters. “Oh. Dus mopes.” He reaches his little arms out and stirs the air.
“So pretty, Mommy.” He’s smiling.
So am I.

And so we stand there watching dust swirl around in the sun beams,
forgetting all about the laundry,
but remembering well the sheer
magic of childhood.

Legs spread, mind scattered
Organs decay, insides battered
The thought runs wild
“did it even ever matter?”

Blood pours, like wine
Ripe berries, already burst
“Childs joy was never mine"
Tears follow, a mother cursed

Blood fills the floor
Search begins for something more
Ripening fear begins to mild
Dire sorrow fills mothers core

Lifeless child, fresh of womb
A mistake, time has forgot
Too ripe, child now faces tomb
And a sorrow, mother lays distraught

She looks at her
As she feeds him
As she beams at him
With a mother's pride
Then she wonders quietly
How her baby would've been

She watches her
As she struggles with her crying baby
As she tries to soothe him
As everyone judges her motherhood
As she tries to mother him
And she wonders quietly
About her own
That she never got to hold

She quietly questions
Whether it was a relieving loss
Like a dodged bullet
She quietly wonders
How her single motherhood
Would've been in a judgy community
Of hateful christians