why i write

and about who

I’ve been writing about motherhood all semester, and someone in my poetry class finally asked me why. I didn’t have an answer when put on the spot, but this is what I’ve decided.

I made a friend last summer that has a toddler-aged daughter, and it’s been crazy to watch from the sidelines as he navigates fatherhood. It’s kind of made the vail between adult and child blur.

As a kid you think your parents have it all figured out, and I’m sure if/when I have a kid, I’ll realize how often parents are winging it. But right now I have this little window where I can relate to everyone, at least partially.

I’m not a child, but I’m not yet a parent.

I see my friend trying his best, and stumbling through it all: bills, relationships, mental health. I have sympathy the way I would for any of my friends, cuz being an adult is hard. And he has all the adult responsibilities that I’m just grazing.

But at the same time, I see his daughter. And I see myself in her. And suddenly I’m incredibly angry and scared and resentful in a way that very much evokes my state of mind at 13, rather than 3.

It makes me want to scream at my friend that he isn’t perfect. And he has to be perfect. He can’t let her down; not like I was.

In truth, if I look hard enough, I can make any situation a microcosm of my greatest insecurities and emotional wounds.

My friend tells me sometimes that maybe I shouldn’t have kids. He doesn’t say it to insult me. I think it’s his way of trying to protect me from some of the hardships he’s faced.

So I guess I’ve been doing all this writing about motherhood to examine my intents.

Why do I want to have kids?

Will I be a good mother?

I haven’t answered those questions, but I’ve realized there’s a lot of my childhood I have to unpack before I do.

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Here’s one of the (fictional!!) poems I wrote:

Enmeshed

The melodic dial tone of your pulse on the monitor

dominates the impatient silence.

A nurse sticks another needle in your spongey skin.

We both flinch. I say,

“I’m sorry baby, I feel your pain.”

~

You once rested within my body,

my blood enmeshed with yours;

I formed a whole organ to get it ready for you.

~

I watch your father saunter through the door

three hours late. He embraces you

in his grease-stained frame;

I pull myself in from the edge of intervention

because you still believe

Daddy’s arms heal all.

~

He tickles you between the wires, tubes,

and Bluey pajamas. And I

bite my cautious tongue since your laughter

erupts louder than it has all week.

~

Your smile closes the distance between us,

like the first time you were in this hospital,

and your little blue eyes opened

to the big wide world.

You will forever be our blood.

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