seams and stitching ♡ published

MOTHER'S AUTUMN

my mother is named after a flower
that is associated
with love and purity and good luck.
this is ironic and yet fitting,
because my mother
is a gold statue being eaten by rust
while also gleaming
in untarnished glory—
because her body
is an abandoned building
haunted by the hands
of unwanted ghosts
and simultaneously a city
booming with innovation and life—
because she is beautiful and insecure
but walks with an aura
of intoxicating confidence
and in the end it all entangles together
like wayward roots of a flower
and blooms into a petaled paradox
that goes by the name
"Jasmine," and "Mother."

my mother was a bright young girl
with an assigned wardrobe
and a trained mouth
and a mind taught to bow down
to tyrant kings and queens
and a body like a war zone:
a broken jaw, a bloody lip,
punched eye, swollen hip,
gash here, bruise there,
scar here, seam there,
untouched, too ripe,
torn to pieces, rearranged,
shredded and reconstructed,
stuffed too much and tied too tight,
inside out and back again,
broken back down and retrained;
men came in like brave soldiers
armed for a bloody battle
but only found a barren land
broken into pieces
christened love, purity, and good luck.

my mother may be a broken,
barren land
but her mind flourishes with waterfalls
of intelligence and wisdom.
inside her bubbles
the fountain of youth,
for she is a symbol of everlasting life
like the ankh tattooed
on the inside of her wrist.
she is infinite and unbeatable
like the memory of her beloved
Ancient Egypt,
the land of gold,
sophistication and opulence
she fell in love with as a girl.

when my mother loves, she loves hard.
she loves like a tsunami,
like a hurricane,
like a tornado,
like a natural disaster
or an ethereal intervention,
she loves with an unearthly power
that could destroy and resurrect
anything in the world,
and that is both terrifying
and awe-striking.

but some days existence
is an obstacle in mother's way.
some days her psyche
tries to drown her in a sea
of dark memories
and she fights of
depression and anxiety
just to get a chance to breath.
but she fights, and she's still fighting,
and even though my mother
does not know how to swim
and the idea of floating
is just as terrifying
as the thought of drowning,
she is fighting,
and that is all that matters.

my mother is an evergreen in autumn.
she is a valiant warrior
in a forest of fight-less trees
that lose their leaves,
and she remains green and glorious
as everything and everyone around her disintegrates into dust.

i could go on about her strength
and beauty
and my unimaginable love for her
for all of eternity,
but we don't have that kind of time,
and eventually an overabundance
of something
becomes underwhelming.

so i will plant
this last seed of a poem
in this stanza
and hope that the flower
it grows into
does my mother justice:

yes, my mother's body is a war-zone, but it is my shelter.
and yes, my mother's mind
tries to drown her,
but it is where i learned to swim.
and yes, my mother
is made of petals and paradoxes,
but she is a flower
that will not allow herself
to be plucked,
and a plant that will forever bloom
into a floral display
of love and purity and good luck.

and i love her
to infinity and beyond.