a late letter for july
realistically, here i am, writing and erasing, dropping pencil and picking up a new pen. taking another new card then soon to fold it in half, starting again. a pile of discarded attempt. am i being too complicated? or such subject naturally requires such efforts? i cannot tell anymore.
so here it is, your birthday greeting, way behind, dripping into the lateness of days, weeks. but perhaps it is all alright. if it creeps up, like the weeds in the most attentively tended garden, may be it needs to come up, breath, live, even when it may be an inconvenience, like a lone dandelion in pristine green lawn.
you live a hard life. busy in the middle of the bustle, especially with your husband and mother- a mother, who simply became your own, rather than being folded into a social grace of 'in-law.' the customers from the store. your own kiddies. you live a life of a iron man. an iron mother theresa.
i wonder if you have lost yourself in the middle of the maelstrom. though i have no courage to tell you so in person.
i cant fill in the space gabe left you. i dont fit into the space you want, as i am molded in a different shape, much like a sqaure peg for a triangular hole. since ive left home, i remained and fostered myself as an individualist. a reactionary, a mirror reflection of you, an altruist.
i have left you with friction burns. of small scars and cuts, from sharp exchanges of words and looks. i have put in the big nails on your heart, the nails that shuts and dents the shapes of your own self. i slammed them on with my own weight. my own life's weight. your heart is no longer just cozy and warm, as it once may have been, before us. it's alive, warm yet i see the scars i have left on your heart. and like the heart, the scars move and breath, cracking and healing, like liver of prometheus.
i can no longer claim your heart as mine. i can no longer ask a piece of it easily, because i have trodden on yours, with iron hooves of mad young foal, running, running, running.
but like a foal, i do look back and i do come back.
near you, not daring to be with you.
i wish i can tell you the things i wish to tell you.
uncomplicated.
impossible.
the simple truth may be that i love you.
as a daughter, i love my mother.
tired, worn, sick, aged. you barely have enough to make to your hairdresser once a month. you have to make time to see your acupunturist. your own flesh, you want to hold and mold, but this individualist always moves slightly to the side, insisting and expressing quite different world. so you have to stretch your limbs out, as far as they could go, to hold me and also to hold our differences, which spills over our lives.
the weight of your young one, sunk to the bottom of your heart, buried on cold ground, out of reach, regardless of how far you may stretch your tired arms.
i am nothing special. no fancy name cards. i own a few frazzled things, which holds only a sliver of value for others. without ownership, i float like a feather, here and there, going where i want to, leaving me not much to offer to you.
i find it hard to call you. i find it impossible to give you my love in little chunks, though all i want to do is to offer you bits of my love, as if i would offer you a free dip in my pocket, probably full of candies- nothing grand and nothing precious.
but i do carry you.
in my heart.
i do believe i am blessed.
you are my mother.
i cant dare tell you.
it takes me ages to write to you.
you are disappearing under the weight of life.
beauty, laughter, time,
you need them.
you dont have them.
you cant have them.
you are busy and worn.
you do carry bits of me in your heart.
even when your heart is packed with demands of life.
like a gold mine,
you keep knocking pieces of you from self,
digging deeper each time,
sending them out to the world,
knowing that you wont have them
once youve share them with others
leaving you less each time.
that's you, mother.
and i love you.
hotter than the smelters of gold mine.
Comments
Post a Comment