For a Woman
I knew there was a map laid out behind your eyes, Mother. I could run my fingers along red lines that meant
black roads and heavily trodden soil, from your many gardens. I laid in your dirt and sang hymns to your
hisbiscus that draped their leaves over the weeds and clung to the rain like the handle bars of a bicycle.
I stood tall in your window curtains and swam through the thick blankets that adorned your bed.
I was the sweat pressed against your breasts, and the voicebox jammed in your throat.
Did I not sing lovely?
You showed me the Beauty and the Beast, sprang them to life with smooth strokes of buttercup yellow and crimson petals.
Often times I buried myself in your veins.
I could feel you. Two halves became whole.
I ran the distance, over mountains and through deep brush to find a young girl.
I became the trees and stole the wind's hands, grasping your voice with what little strength I had.
I have stolen your voice, Mother.
I hungered greedily.
I kept you stashed between my sheets, the sheets I wrapped my legs around,
the sheets that are stained with misled love.
We were one, there. When he tried to become a part of me too.
He could only get as deep as he could, with all physical force and energy drained with what he thought he
accomplished.
But I laid awake, Mother.
I saw your smile like the light from the bathroom door, and crept in to see you there,
waiting.
You held my heart, there.
We are one.
I am the seed that is willing to blossom. You see my neck like the trunk of that tree that I have made myself into.
We are merely the grass. The heavens shine upon us and harvest our love.
I will know you are always with me because although it may be cloudy,
I know your light is there.
And if I traveled far enough, I would find you, a young woman stretched out on sheets, tangled in her own disaster.
Your own beautiful disaster.
I know I am loved.
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