I go back and forth over those upcoming days:
do I dress myself up for Boo’s eighteenth birthday?
do I play myself down and just let her have space?
I will spend the first in silent awe of her beautiful face…
it’s so difficult to describe to anyone who may be asking –
in any words or phrases in any language that is known to me,
the deep losses and emptiness that linger above me, cloudily,
my mind feels confined to the place that’s defined by utter misery…
to be a mother to a daughter who’s lit the darkest of my nights,
a little girl who centered my world when nothing else felt right,
a little spirit whose existence is eternally intertwined with mine,
but, my girl has grown up to hold her standards anywhere but high…
most parents are worried about colleges and hot-boxed minivans,
my motherly fears are so vast and sincere, it has hijacked who I am,
after the few days we get for her birthday and high school graduation,
and to wrap it up – I have to leave there without her once again…
to have a daughter who calls you “Mama”,
and she brags about how young I am to her friends,
the absent parent, ‘Orphan Annie’ over-glorifications,
if she only knew how hard I’ve fought to stand in line and fall in…
things have gone so horribly wrong since they broke our family,
they’ve pushed her further and further so inconspicuously,
built a framework in her state of mind that disregarded me,
it’s not the eighteenth birthday party I’ve been imagining…