This Mother Love

I’m as sharp as I am soft, and so is this mother love.

Sometimes it’s so intense, it pierces me deeply and I bruise and bleed over worst case scenarios, over the worry of loss.

Sometimes it’s calm, a rounded feeling, as if my life had a backing track with notes that make me weep,

untethered, unexplainable.

It’s a tape on fast forward that feels like slow motion.

My pause button is the plastic box of baby clothes in the garage. Maybe we’ll give them to their kids one day.

Or maybe I’ll pull out the size 1 green and blue striped tee shirt when the house is silent. The one that makes me think of sunblock, and his first summer.

It’s harsh and it’s quiet. It woke me up inside and still I’m dreaming. Some days I’m floating and others I’m thrashing in the waves.

It’s the easiest feeling and the hardest lessons. It’s the itch inside a bone, it’s something even reason cannot know.

It’s as long as the nights that bring you to your knees and as clear as the phantom cries in the shower.

It’s emotions that leave flesh wounds and heal you all at once.

A wild belonging, this mother love.

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