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?
