Who do you imagine I am?

Every day since you
emerged protesting
into the rude glare of 
fluorescent hospital 
lights 
you’ve 
known
mother.

A person
{we won’t even speculate if gender enters into it}
who makes rules
picks gravel from cuts
puts dinner on
the table at 6
o’clock {most} nights.
Rescues. 
Listens.
Teaches.

A person who
exists 
for you?


Maybe those 
haphazard take-out food
nights when dinner was
distraction,

maybe you glimpsed
my shadow 
behind 
the mother mask?

did tendrils of 
untamed mixed silver
hair slip free
when I wasn’t 
looking?

Or did my carefully
muted wild woman
howls 
escape
in your 
hearing?

Did you wonder
at stealthy footfalls
on full moon
nights?

The creak of the
long-since-locked
kitchen door
giving away 
my yearning to be
coated in
her silver light...


I never was like
all the other 
moms

no matter
how hard
I tried 
to stuff my
round wandering 
self into
their mold.

Our house smelled
like herbs 
and oils
and all your friends 
noticed.

I wrote with the
voice of wildness
and tried to heal
broken souls
while healing
my own.

Maybe the harder
I tried to look
the same 
the more
different I
seemed?

You who are 
fragments of me
wrapped in unique
and wonderful souls…

who do you imagine I am?

© 2016 Tracie Nichols
All rights reserved.

*First published on April 24, 2016 at Kind Over Matter as WHO DO YOU IMAGINE I AM?