The Crone.
For my Mother.
My mother has strong hands. And in them you can see the pathways of her pain. She has held the world in them. The dirt of her rising from the Earth still stains her fingernails. She never washed it off. You can see the colors of the paint that she used for her life, for my self-esteem, for her wedding vows. If you look closely you can see the scars that the rope left when she gripped them intently, desperately, passionately to keep my father. My father is still in the cracks of her knuckles. Her hands are not dirty but you can see that they have carried too much. You can see the ink from her diploma, the stains from her tears, the dents from the times she gripped her brain and did not know to quiet its screaming.
My mother has strong hands.
Janae
She cries at night. She thinks I don’t know. She thinks I can’t hear the prayers to her God to free her from herself. She taught me to be afraid of the things inside me. And sometimes when the fog over her mind clears she trails into my room and begs me to forgive a woman I barely remember. I have inherited her fog. The bags under her eyes the next day tell me the story of a little girl who was told to be scared of everything. I read her history in those lines. She doesn’t talk about the night before. She pretends that her two-syllable name is only a word for her smile. She prays in the morning, guarding herself for the night. She prays that the monster of her fury stays silent for just one day. My mother is haunted by her anger and by the childhood her brain won’t let her access. She is silently taunted by her disassociation. Michelle can’t remember what made her feel like she needs to scream, she doesn’t know who taught her to shake and growl. She is disconnected from the root of her constant fear and desperate need to hold onto me for dear life. I remember resenting her grip. The grip around my life that made me feel the need to fly in every and all directions but hers. I did not understand that I was a lifeboat. She held me because I was the only connection she had to her identity. I was a little girl who she did not want the world to make a monster in, like it had done to her. She did not know how to hold me. But in the pain and angered eyes, there was a small child who wanted to stop her. Behind the shaking there was a helping hand. My fog has started to clear and my heart has started to heal. I am now the woman she made. I am now a woman who has learned to love and understand her. I want to heal you, mother. I want you to draw from me the strength you need to feel anything but fear. I want to lend to you my heart so that you can pour the love into your own deeply battered soul. Let me heal you. We can find freedom together.
Janae
Her silence has become regular. I have become accustomed to the sound of an unanswered phone call, familiar with the feeling of a family member being ripped from my fragile and powerless hands. Sometimes I am nothing but a garden for the weeds of abandonment she has fostered in me and she loves to pick them from the ground. She taught me that no matter how long they say they love you, no matter how much they want you to love them – they would always go. There is always something more beautiful than me. -
Janae
She cries at night. She thinks I don’t know. She thinks I can’t hear the prayers to her God to free her from herself. She taught me to be afraid of the things inside me. And sometimes when the fog over her mind clears she trails into my room and begs me to forgive a woman I barely remember. I have inherited her fog. The bags under her eyes the next day tell me the story of a little girl who was told to be scared of everything. I read her history in those lines. She doesn’t talk about the night before. She pretends that her two-syllable name is only a word for her smile. She prays in the morning, guarding herself for the night. She prays that the monster of her fury stays silent for just one day. My mother is haunted by her anger and by the childhood her brain won’t let her access. She is silently taunted by her disassociation. Michelle can’t remember what made her feel like she needs to scream, she doesn’t know who taught her to shake and growl. She is disconnected from the root of her constant fear and desperate need to hold onto me for dear life. I remember resenting her grip. The grip around my life that made me feel the need to fly in every and all directions but hers. I did not understand that I was a lifeboat. She held me because I was the only connection she had to her identity. I was a little girl who she did not want the world to make a monster in, like it had done to her. She did not know how to hold me. But in the pain and angered eyes, there was a small child who wanted to stop her. Behind the shaking there was a helping hand. My fog has started to clear and my heart has started to heal. I am now the woman she made. I am now a woman who has learned to love and understand her. I want to heal you, mother. I want you to draw from me the strength you need to feel anything but fear. I want to lend to you my heart so that you can pour the love into your own deeply battered soul. Let me heal you. We can find freedom together.
Janae
Mother,
You held onto him so tight.
I don’t know if you did it for me
Or for love
Or for lack of love for yourself.
But you have since let go.
And I hope you can heal.
Now I know what it's like
To love someone who does not love you.
I know how it feels to grip the threads
That hang from a memory
Of something you swore with every ounce of your being
Would be forever.
I see you now in the warmth of your new love
A love that accepts you
And I am happy
That you have found it.
I hope it heals the scars.
I hope you feel whole.
I hope you find your jubilee. –