Jolene’s Reviews > The Mothers > Status Update
Jolene
is on page 12 of 66
And in small ways we do eat our young, feed off their stores, metabolize their still dewy flesh, swallow little rations of hope by watching them filter sand through their fingers for the first time, be first touched by a wave, feast on their look of conquest when they scale the wall of their crib... and you have already blown into a child's sweaty hair as they slept on your chest, how dare you ask for more?
— Feb 07, 2026 08:05PM
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Jolene’s Previous Updates
Jolene
is on page 35 of 66
Weeks pass of empty scalp, but in my dreams the lice squirm in an infinity loop, a disorganized school of fish, multiplying exponentially, becoming more and more covered until they are a solid block of pulsing black which follows me wherever I go because it all come down to blood: being made from it, being thirsty for it.
— Mar 01, 2026 06:45PM
Jolene
is on page 17 of 66
More than food they are tribute, piled up outside your altar, a compost pile of what good mothers do. An incantation, a prayer, a pleading: "Look what I made you." Sitting there like a dummy, all mother-shaped and rotting.
— Feb 10, 2026 06:52PM
Jolene
is on page 15 of 66
Every time I remember that my son is saddled elsewhere in someone else's arms, not mine, milk seeps from my bbreath, an ancient ache, a second set is tear ducts. By midday, all my shirts have hardened circles, stiff ghost areolas, despite the absorbent pads, my body manages to scrawl a message: please, it begs, please, just let me hold him.
— Feb 08, 2026 08:31PM
Jolene
is on page 11 of 66
There is the simple cost benefit analysis, daycare and diapers, yes, but it doesn't consider the intangibles, the dearest currency of all: the cheek brushed against yours, the soft body wanting to be in your orbit and you wanting so badly to be in theirs, and how the gravity between those celestial bodies is what keeps us all from spinning out of control.
— Feb 06, 2026 07:49PM
Jolene
is on page 8 of 66
Sharks are messy eaters so little bits of the mother octopuses' bodies fall like slow-motion snow. A meal for whatever is waiting with an open mouth. Often, the mothers are dead before their eggs hatch, but sometimes the barely visible newborns glide past their mother's body shrapnel, baby and mother the same size now, identical to the naked eye, but for the way they are moving in opposite directions.
— Feb 02, 2026 07:56PM
Jolene
is starting
I'm told I must draw a line, but I can't figure out where I end and my children begin -- like the mint in the garden that jams its appendages in the ground, travels sideways, sprouts up feet away, clear across the lawn.
— Jan 25, 2026 08:37PM
