Ambivalence

Mommy issues poetry.

I remember warm hands and soft

coos and tight squeezes that made

me feel like everything was

all right in the world--

that nothing else mattered because

I was okay and she was all okay;

we were all just fine.

But childhoods are much more complex than simple memories.

There was a basket of books on my shelf

that my mother used to read from every night

and I don’t even remember at

what age I was when it halted--

I don’t remember at what age I rejected

a bedtime story or maybe it was at what age

my mother stopped reading to me,

but I do remember my favorite story and

her favorite story.

When I was twelve-years-old  

I wrote a children’s book for school,

one that my mother was so proud of

she wanted me to publish it--

I remember being embarrassed that

she had even read the piece of work,

I remember shutting her down.  

There were a lot of walls I built that

when I look back now, I think of myself

as a Soviet building the

Berlin Wall against my own mother in

an attempt to keep her out of my way--

not maternal rejection, but

        offspring rejection.

And they say that it’s perfectly

normal for a preteen girl to pick fights

with her own mother because that’s a form

of budding independence but it doesn’t

        feel okay

it feels like I’ve got this massive

beast inside that is the real me,

and it’s waiting for the day that it can bust

through my gut and show the world what

I really look like internally;

I am not made of skin and bones and

muscles and organs--

I am made of anger and regret and guilt,

I am made of a monster that looks like

Behemoth and roars like a Chimera.

I am made of emotions that run my life.

Sometimes I feel like a fish on dry land

because everyone around me goes on

day to day like normal human beings,

but me, I’m flailing around, trying to

find some way for me to breathe normally

and I can’t seem to find out which way the lake is--

this map is upside down, this compass

is broken, and all my tools are useless, so

I think I should just give up.

I should just be the quitter that she accused me of being

on that one day when we got into that argument

over dance class or playing the violin,

I can’t recall which,

but I don’t think that would make her happy.

"Love You Forever" was my mother’s

favorite book, the one that

she would read to me when I couldn’t

make the tough choice over which story

I wanted to hear and maybe that

was her telling me that no matter what I did

or who I became, I would always be hers,

(dance classes and violin playing aside).

My mother was a novel that was not

finished by its author and I want to

end my story for her--

I want to 

              breathe 

                           for her.

This is me completing her cliffhanger

by ending this poem

        abruptly

and emotionally 

                                and

Author's Note

I am iffy about this poem. Give me constructive criticism.

Reviews

[Glen Yumang Manese]

I believe you can tighten this a bit in areas and make this verse even more in your lines...for example and not going through the whole narrative:

I remember warm hands and soft
coos and tight squeezes that made
me feel like everything was
all right in the world--
that nothing else mattered because
I was okay and she was all okay;
we were all just fine.
-------------------------------------------------
I remember warm hands, soft
coos and tight squeezes made
me feel like everything was
all right in the world--
nothing mattered because
I and she was okay;
we were just fine.

see what I mean...you can edit this and still have a crisp and sound of a write...this is just my personal opinion...if you like it as is...that's all that matters...