My mothers.

This is about my mother, the women I see as mothers and the people I see as family. I got a lot of emotions out when writing it. Please let me know what you think of it, but please be constructive.

A mothers comfort is the first thing a child cries for when removed from the safety of the womb. It's programmed into our minds that mothers equal comfort and love, but what is a child to do when her mother's hugs are always too tight and her mother's lips burn like fire when she gives kisses?

I don't see the woman who grew me inside of her as my mother. A mother is warm and gentle and understanding, but the woman who shares living space with me is only bitter, depressive and angry.

I feel no comfort in her angry rants or breaking of cabinet doors. I see no love in her fists hitting the walls or the flying pots and pans that break through the windows.

I get more comfort from people who go from strangers to teachers to caretakers in a matter of days.
I have a daughter's love for women who have no blood ties to me, but are more like mothers then my own.

I cry in their arms, I laugh with them and I tell them how long it's been since I've held a blade to my skin and they tell me how proud of me they are.
They tell me that I'm special and smart and beautiful and never say that I'm a punishment put upon them by some vengeful God who thinks she is gluttonous for having a third child.

The ones who glue my broken mind back together for just a moment, when they talk to me like they don't hate me, are the only ones who try to make me happy.
I stop feeling the anger that makes my very soul when I feel a pair of their arms around me, holding me close, telling me that she's there and that she's got me.

Their touch doesn't burn like acid through my clothes and onto my skin, stripping my body to raw, bloody muscle.
Their touch is gentle and soft like feathers while hers is crushing, painful, acidic and unwelcomed.

Jenny was the mother who brought the nightlight, who put it by my bedside and showed me that even though it seemed like there was nothing besides the eternal darkness and the monsters that lived in it, the world could be such a beautiful place. She taught me how the words that flooded my mind could describe the tiny light and make it bigger and brighter and how that light would always stay with me as long as I had the words to describe it.

Sarah was the mother who brought the plasters, who put them on my self-inflicted cuts and told me that scars didn't suit such a strong girl like me. Her sweet smile gives me more happiness then the blood that ran from my flesh when the blades would dance across my now battered arms and scared thighs ever did.

Emma was the mother who brought the tissues, who put a tissue in my right hand while she held so tightly to my left and used her other to wipe the tears from my eyes. She put my face to her chest and let me cry, cry tears over my blood red and broken biology and lonely life spent in solitude, only occasionally penetrated by backstabbing peers who tell me that we're friends when I'm just something for them to laugh at and keep secrets from.

I don't just have three mothers though, no, I have aunts and uncles and cousins, all of whom are at least a decade older then I and even though different blood runs through our veins, they are my family. They are the family I love and trust and care for, but none of them know how I see them.

None of them know that when I draw stick figures on paper with a thick, black marker I write their names above their heads like 'My mum Jenny', 'My mum Sarah', 'My mum Emma', not even my 'Aunty Sam' or 'Cousin Stefan' know. None of them know that I write their names inside of love hearts because I truly do love them like the happy, supportive family I've never had before.

When I feel like I'm chin deep in the inky black lake that is depression, I keep my head bent up to the sky to look for my life savers. My life savers who make me get myself out of bed in the morning and help me get through the day, every day with their supportive words.

When my neck gets tired from looking and my arms are tired from trying to keep myself afloat, I feel them trying to pull me up and out of the water. Even though I'm glued to the bottom by cement and chains: they still try to pull me free, my three mothers.

If I do ever break free from my watery grave, it will be their arms I will be saved by. And if I drown, it's their faces and voices that will finally make my mind tranquil as I fade away.

My three mothers will comfort their child as she seeks their comfort one last time.

Author's Note

I wrote the first three stanzas after the rest and I don't like them as much as the rest so please let me know if they flow into the rest of it. Also please let me know of any options and how I can improve, but please be constructive. And if anyone can tell me if I put it in the wrong genre (currently in spoken word) please let me know. Thank you. :)