I. my mother loves me,
i know it.
it's written in the way she
uses permanent markers on my bathroom mirror
to say 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY'
before i'm awake, or
how in the afternoon
she comes to my desk
when i'm studying, carrying a
pink-white-flower bowl i had
since being a toddler,
full of imperfect apple slices.

the way the yellow albums
with overflowing
2000's memories and
kindergarten drawings are packed
messily around the dark wooden cabinet
that I used to climb,
while learning how to walk.
or even how she still has
all of our baby teeth
saved somewhere, after trading
each one for a spare change
under the pillow at night.

II. my mother despises me sometimes,
i think.
it's on the look in her eyes,
madly moving around,
wide, traded of a kabuki mask
that failed to recognize me
as something born
out of herself.
or maybe it's the words that
come out of her mouth,
full of teeth and
lacking sweetness,
that manage to tear my
heart, just like
simeon said they would:
"mary," he prophesied,
"a sword shall pierce your soul."
and I learn to forgive,
to crawl back and
to let go.

III. I love my mother,
it's true.
though I fear she may love
who I was
more than who i'll ever be.

I had a dream once.
There I was,
standing by the water,
toes deep in the sand and
hair kissed by
a strong breeze.

The words,
the words the waves spoke to me
are diluted, translucent.
Illegible and unheard.
But I know deep, instinctively
the weight they carried:
heavy as a whale,
worth of a pearl on the shore.

The water embraced me
like a mother.
Cradled me in arms,
soft touch, silk.
She didn't hold me down,
would never let me
drown.

Slowly drifting
like La Meduse.
A moment immortalized,
a breath, the shape of a tongue
- no more,
and they sink into the unknown,
far away.

I wake up in a shipwreck
no one bothered to witness.
The hull was cracked
and the wood is broken.
Not a soul to hear the cry.

My struggle is useless,
for they are already lost.
My little raft,
too eager,
never had a chance
against a tidal wave.
Now it rests beneath the Manche
- a graveyard full of life.

I should have known,
the foam comes and goes.
I should've know;
It can't be caught.
It's free as the
wild marlin, clever
as the flying 'rays.
There's no one else
but me
to mourn
the words the sea
never gave a chance to be.

Some days,
I taste salt bitter in my mouth,
biting.
Some nights,
I stay awake and wonder
about what I lost
that I never had
in the first place.
And the thought manages
to sting more
than any wound ever would.