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August 5th
It’s hard to breathe. She lies in bed and all you can do is watch the weight of her words gather on your chest and weave itself into a blanket to suffocate. You never know if it’s about the words themselves or the flow of them that make you want to grieve. But you lie still beneath the weight of her words.
She talks about raising her brothers and sisters, how her mother was at work until late in the evening. How she never had the chance to be a child because she? She had responsibility. Words like “college” and “father” fall from her lips like gifts and curses, scorpions wrapped in a bow. The things she never had (“long hair,” “light skin,” money, things, shoes without holes), the things that she gives as a present to her children with only the edges sharpened by her regret and disdain. You lie still beneath the weight of her words, breath slight for fear of wounding yourself on her words.
She closes her eyes to stem the flood of tears and cries out in her incomprehension. What did she do wrong? For a daughter and a son to be at loggerheads for a dozen years and no one is any the wiser? You grieve and strive to stop listening to the tide of a parent’s heartbreak. You’ll drown.
You can hear the accusation in her voice, even as you sneak away to your own bedroom and the sound of her voice is only a memory. That she’d never do anything like that to her mother is understood. That she’d sacrificed, all too clear. Thoughts tied to the weight of your mother’s grief, you drown, wondering what the hell an 11 year old could have done.
It’s hard to breathe. She lies in bed and all you can do is watch the weight of her words gather on your chest and weave itself into a blanket to suffocate. You never know if it’s about the words themselves or the flow of them that make you want to grieve. But you lie still beneath the weight of her words.
She talks about raising her brothers and sisters, how her mother was at work until late in the evening. How she never had the chance to be a child because she? She had responsibility. Words like “college” and “father” fall from her lips like gifts and curses, scorpions wrapped in a bow. The things she never had (“long hair,” “light skin,” money, things, shoes without holes), the things that she gives as a present to her children with only the edges sharpened by her regret and disdain. You lie still beneath the weight of her words, breath slight for fear of wounding yourself on her words.
She closes her eyes to stem the flood of tears and cries out in her incomprehension. What did she do wrong? For a daughter and a son to be at loggerheads for a dozen years and no one is any the wiser? You grieve and strive to stop listening to the tide of a parent’s heartbreak. You’ll drown.
You can hear the accusation in her voice, even as you sneak away to your own bedroom and the sound of her voice is only a memory. That she’d never do anything like that to her mother is understood. That she’d sacrificed, all too clear. Thoughts tied to the weight of your mother’s grief, you drown, wondering what the hell an 11 year old could have done.
