i don’t like flowers but i draw them often because my mother has a garden. in spring and summer, early morning, i hear her humming downstairs from my bed. the blanket always holds my shins as though i can slip away into space anytime if it doesn’t, and i embrace my pillow like a lover and snuggle my face into it’s softness, unable to hold back the upturn of my lips. my mother sings a tune she doesn’t know, feeling peace in her heart— one which i can hear from the way water trickles out of the jug, from the way her slippers scratch against the pavement as she takes gentle steps here and there, there and here. a finger patting the petals of flower here, a supportive hand under a leaf there; she tends to her plants like a mother. a mother.

what must that be like, to be a mother? i ask myself this now but i’m already playing the role towards myself. always have, always, forever, always.

i haven’t slept in a few days. the exhaustion is creeping in slowly in the daily tasks i do, my hands are clumsier, my brain more foggy. i have been a bad mother to myself lately.

my body wants rest but my mind is alive. in the dark night, my balcony door is open, my lamp light is on, and outside it rains and rains and rains. i am soaking as i stare at the darkwood surface of my desk. there are specks of paint, cuts from the sharp blades of a papercutter, dried glue and the remains of a droplet of tear that i couldn’t hold back and hastily wiped away. the mother in me chides for crying. the daughter shrivels up and becomes an impenetrable crevice.

i have become nothing again. i have become everything again. i have so much to do. i have nothing to do. i am no longer boundless and infinite. i sit small on my chair and stare and stare and stare. there is nothing left for me to do. i am soaking in cold, a rain that is not falling on me. the cold is in my bones.

i am not afraid of anything but there are eyes on every drop of rain that falls outside my window. i am scared to go to the balcony. i hate the rain, it is too curious. it is too curious and i am too transparent. i hate the rain. it sees.

keeping myself company is the easiest thing i can do, because i am the mother and i am the daughter. even breathing, to me, is more difficult than being with myself, by myself. but i’m not afraid of it, none of it.

i raise myself the way i know how. i have let go of friends i thought i wanted to have in my life until the end of time. there are lovers, but no one i love. there is peace, but there is loneliness. there is no hurt, but there is guilt, there is unease. does it ever go away?

i don’t want to share. not myself, not my guilt, not my anchoring blanket. but the rain can see. the rain…i hate the rain. it can see that i want to share. it knows now.

that i fail at being two people at once. when i make a mistake, i am carving my skin as a punishment with one hand and patting myself on the head with another. none of the two actions help. my mistake exists, i have it written down in blank pages of books i have made, which i will show no one. my mistake lives. and i am unable to be a mother to myself.

my mistake exists and it is my mother. my mistake exists and it is my daughter. both of them is me. the rain sees.

i am both and the rain sees and it is a mistake. i close my door.

song for the day/post: forwards beckon rebound by adrianne lenker

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