for people who (a mother's day poem)

I suppose I should write something,

being a writer and all,

about this day.

many people celebrate this day

with flowers & flowery declarations

I

am silent

watch this day

from sidelines, silently

I am not bitter

I know that most people that say they aren’t bitter

are bitter

but I am not.  I’m just

silent

there are many things that come between parents and children

that replace umbilical cords with

words held hostage in throat

sometimes home feels farther away

than the most distant memory

I don’t want to feed you clichés.  I’m just being vague

truth is, I don’t want to tell you the truth

if I did then you would know all the words I edit out of all the poems

and therein is the rest of me

the me you don’t see

I am writing this

not to tell an incredibly specific truth about my story

I am writing this because I have to do something on this day

I want to shout out everybody with complicated relationships with their mothers

mothers who it hurts to love up close

hurts to love from a distance

I am writing this for people who did not post beautiful pictures of their mamas

on facebook, twitter and instagram today

folks who never know how to answer “how’s your mum?”

I am writing this for those who feel an ache when they see people in happy relationships with their mamas

I know

me too.

I still believe in healing

I still believe in loving through all the things we don’t know how to love through

and today, if mother’s day is making you feel like an orphan

out of place

or forgotten,

I feel you.

mental illness has never been my problem

photo credit: al janae hamilton

mental illness has never been my problem. I’m mentally stable to the point of being emotionally logical—I could write a thesis about my feelings for any given person in my life complete with bibliographies and case studies. I’m not trying to be funny. it’s true.

I’ve been depressed. there have been times when I was so depressed I fuckin worried myself, wanted to tell someone to come watch over me and make sure I was okay. (I’m okay.)

it’s the most heartbreaking thing to watch your mother lose herself in her own depression. it’s a pain I can’t put words to. it hurts so much, I’ve stopped feeling. I’ve just shut my feelings off, sent them to go shudder and huddle into themselves in a faraway country. she says really mean things to me. and doesn’t remember. she disowned me a week before Christmas. told me she never wanted to speak to me again. then she called me from Nebraska, thousands of miles from home, wanting me to bring her back home. she didn’t remember telling me the things she told me that hurt me so deep I was walking around like a zombie for a week. she didn’t fuckin remember the words that devastated my soul.

she calls me—crying. angry. happy. regretful. depressed. yelling. whispering. sometimes she goes through all these emotions in one conversation. sometimes she hangs up on me. sometimes she cries. sometimes she blames me. sometimes she wants me to forgive her. sometimes she thinks I’m her perfect daughter. sometimes she blames me for everything. sometimes she thinks I’m her savior. but never is she my mother. she hasn’t been my mother in years. I’ve been mothering my mother for years. she’s someone else. my mother is gone. you know her? you don’t know her. the things my mama taught me…that woman, who taught me how to sew, who held me when Aymi died, who always made sure I knew I was Nigerian, knew where we came from and was proud, that woman who used to make the best egusi soup on either side of the Atlantic, that woman who taught me how to be funny, that woman. my mama. my mother. she’s gone. so fuckin gone. depression took her. paranoia took her. the pain of losing everyone she ever loved, except me, took her. the whoever and their army that she’s convinced is after her took her. maybe her soul is buried with her mother. or with her dead son, my brother. or maybe the pain of being apart from Naija done broke her heart proper. she won’t listen to me. I’ve tried to save her more times than I’ve tried to save myself. cape with the s on my chest. I’ve ran relay races passing the baton to myself, running and running, trying—and I can’t. I can’t give her mind and pride and laughter and joy and life and will to believe in herself back to her. someone stole her from her. if I knew where to go to get her back, I’d go get her back so I could give her back to herself. and have my mama again. do you know how much I need a mother? how many times I want to call a woman who knows me, from breast feeding to baby pictures to puberty to high school dances to college admissions essays to graduation day, and say “mama, tell me why she broke my heart?” and have her comfort me and tell me my wife is somewhere looking for me. do you know how much I want to go home and have her make me a plate of my favorites and not have to tell her how to cook anything because she knows? because her hands making that meal for me my whole life is why it’s my favorite, is why I can’t have it any other way? do you know how much I miss home? I mean the home we made in this country—our home away from home.

I miss our plates and silverware—is that weird? I miss my mama’s silverware and that small kitchen with the blue carpet and delicate little curtain, brown cabinets and old stove. I miss our broken old school 1980s tv, on top of which our new school (well, now it’s old school too) tv sat. the tv we watched benny hill and eastenders and guiding light and the young and the restless on. I miss the glass dining room table where we ate every dinner together everyday of my entire childhood, except the years I was in Nigeria.

do you know what it’s like to watch your own mother disintegrate before your eyes? lose herself and lose so much weight she makes a dandelion seem heavy in comparison? as I write this, the tears are coming and I refuse to let them fall. not again. I’ve cried so many tears, I just won’t anymore.

and then they wonder why I’m hard. they do—the women I love. they call me hard, say I won’t open up. of course I am and of course I won’t. if I love you and you break, like I loved my mama and she broke, how the fuck am I supposed to survive that?

mental illness, depression, paranoia. none of these things are my problem. none of these things effects me. I’m mentally stable. to the point of being emotionally logical. no matter how angry I am, I’m like a lawyer with my emotions—organized and eloquent. I could take any argument to the supreme court and I would win. I’m not like her. they tell you about mental illness and depression. in commercials and in magazine advertisements. they don’t talk about how much it fucks you up to watch the person you love vanish before your eyes, swallowed by a world you can’t see and can’t change. no matter what anyone says, I’ll always feel I haven’t and didn’t do enough. I’m not depressed. but I have plenty of sadness. I carry my own sadness and guilt that I can’t save her from her suffering.

I’d Rather Be On Stage

photo credit: Laura Waterbury

I’m without a mother and father the week of Christmas,
my mother says I’m a bad daughter and that she’ll never speak to me again.
I told my father I’m a dyke & it’s been crickets ever since.
with this weight on my chest and on my back, I’m missing Naija soil,
chasing my parents’ approval and I’m never gonna get it.
I’ve been watching my mother slowly die for years
but it feels like my name on the tombstone

how many ways are there to love a person?
I feel my lover slipping from my grasp so I want to let go
I will not hold you here, it no be by force.
if you wanna go, abeg GO.
I make pilgrimages to what we could be everyday,
crying holy water tears as I watch today bleed and writhe in the bed beside me
she doesn’t know how many times she breaks my heart with her words and distance
I look at her, kiss her, lay in her arms and wonder
if today
will be the day
she shatters my heart.

I’d rather be on stage than dealing with any of this in my everyday,
I can deal with all this
on stage,
in a place where I know everyone came to listen,
where I know I can make you understand,
where I feel more like myself with everyone watching than alone in my room,
where I can be everything I don’t think I’m brave enough to be offstage
I’d rather be on stage than be your confused, insecure lover
Or your unappreciated, guilt-stricken daughter
Or your estranged friend
Or your angry activist
Or who you flirt with
wanna fuck
don’t understand
misunderstand
make assumptions about
categorize
treasure then discard
blame
run from
come to then walk away from
hide from
accuse
break promises to
scapegoat
I’d rather be on stage
sharing journal entries
that somehow turned into
“performance pieces”,
I’d rather find the emotional arch of this narrative and spill the intricate inner-workings of my spirit
for you, my audience,
I’d rather
sculpt a monologue out of this pain,
rather figure out if I should use this tone: (angry) or this one tone: (hurt),
rather experiment with movement then choose how I should hold my body in order to further illuminate this work
I would rather cry for you, here, upstage, center
than cry at 5am in a darkened kitchen alone searching for meaning that never comes.
I find myself up so late it’s early morning, carving words into air, plopping words onto computer, stringing thoughts together to share something
and still feel I like I’m missing something in these lines.
I search for what’s huddled in between these lines
and I can’t find it
asking Meaning to come home to me, wanted dead or alive
and shit is dead on arrival—bodybag.
I’m clutched between the arms of friends,
my tears soak orange sweatshirt,
they rock me,
every other thing makes me cry,
I have to go to work in the morning,
it’s already morning and I haven’t slept yet.

I’m the ultimate emotional exhibitionist. there are things I tell you that I don’t tell the woman I let inside me. and that’s real. the stage and me, we been in this for 11 years. we rock solid, so yes I trust this stage with my broken bits I hide from everyone else. cuz I know she got me

let me edit this poem right quick,
cuz I’d rather
let me run to rehearsal right quick,
cuz I’d rather
I discard that rhyme, rewrite that line, cross that out, extend that metaphor, let the fury quiver, let the sadness swell,
cuz I’d rather
I want to check my phone and see her name,
it’s not there.
I watch the Misfits.
in her arms I feel less and less beautiful and more and more like the needy bitch I can't stand,
my sex drive snuck out my panties and fled the country,
my smile jumped off the Manhattan bridge and dey resurrect like Jesus for special occasions,
I wonder what I’ll wear to her funeral,
maybe I’ll climb in the coffin with her, make sure she gets where she’s going okay
then come back to this stage to tell all y’all all about it.
I promise.

the character I’m playing is me,
I’d rather be on stage than watch my love for you disintegrate with each insult you toss at me, while you tear away at me, bit by bit each day
with the fucked up things you say.
If I have to lose you, I’d rather lose you on stage,
if you’re going to die, I’d rather you die on stage beside me
so I can turn your funeral into a show interrogating mother-daughter dynamics from the grave
if you insist on misunderstanding me, let me respond via poem, via monologue, via choreopoembiomythography.
I can’t answer your questions in standard English, my feet waka, my heart tire. wetin I go do? I give you blood, I no have blood, I give you my heart, I lay my skeleton for road for you. peace of mind no dey, your satisfaction no dey.

you think I’m scientific with my emotions. you’re right. I analyze emotions like there’s a hypothesis to prove or disprove, gather evidence, write poems to articulate my findings and recommendations. then I perform them. this is who I am. who I am is wrong? really? not on this stage it’s not. and that’s why I fuckin love this fuckin stage.
that’s why I’d rather be on stage, because it’s my stage when I’m on it and even when I’m not.
stage be callin my name, sending me emails askin me when I’m comin back.
on this stage, I’m the point of reference for everything, not you, so if I wanna get scientific with it, that’s cool. I never feel too much or say the wrong thing, I’m perfect here. even my fuck ups make sense. my rage and insecurity are all okay. everyone here loves me. even when they don’t agree, they love me. if I don’t know what to say, I make a joke and people laugh. they get me. I can make my lines up as I go. I can lose control and this stage ain’t gonna judge me, I know this stage got me.

my heart,
my heart,
this heart,
if you go break am,
make you break am for stage, so everyone go see,
make I have witness this time.

RIBCAGE

{photo by Laura Waterbury}

I want your arms around me and I could make this about missing you but it’s not.

At the hospital today, the nurse answered my mother’s question without looking at her. She looked at me instead. How does that make sense to anyone with a brain or manners or home training? I wanted to slap her. I asked her to address my mother. Since my mother asked the question. This is not the DMV. These are people’s lives you’re dealing with. She has an accent. She speaks English numbnuts.

I’d like to give myself permission to be imperfect. I never have. If you see a flaw it’s probably because I didn’t know you could see it or because I let you.

The pressure is so much my neck hurts. My throat has hurt for weeks and I keep forgetting to eat. Who has time to crumble? I have shit to do.

By the way, I’m coming out to my father. I wrote the letter. Just have to send it.

But that’s not why I started writing this. I’m writing this because I’m sleepy but don’t want to sleep. Want to let go and hold on. Want to let someone in without feeling like I have to hold it all together. Me letting people see my pain is like trying to tidy a messy house for an unexpected visitor waiting on your stoop. Disconcerting. Awkward. If I knew you were coming, I would’ve done the laundry. If I knew you were gonna come inside my ribcage, I would’ve cried over this last week. Instead of now.

Maybe I should run off from my life for a little while. Do what rich white people do—travel to Southeast Asia to go find themselves in the cultures their forefathers desecrated and whitewashed. But I don’t want to go to Southeast Asia. I want to lay in my bed. That’s it. I want to be able to love you from the love in my chest, instead of lashing out with the pain in my chest, pushing you away because I can’t imagine letting you see the dirty dishes and dusty shelves. I love you too much to let you love me.

Isn’t that the most fucked up something you’ve read today?

My hair and head have been wrapped for 2 weeks. Like a band-aid on my subconscious.

Sometimes I have to forget about my individual life. If I were to focus on my problems, I would stop writing and cry myself into a dehydrated state. Instead I think of the heartbroken, the unsure all over the world. So you know you’re not alone

Here, have this.

mama

I can’t concentrate

or I do a bunch of other things to not think about you

I’m harder than I think, find it easier to cry over a lover than my mother

but the women I date remind me of her

in some way or another

if I had the money, I would take you away from all of this.

I would.

I listen to myself talk to you and I sound like a mechanical, emotionless version of myself

have to detach my heart from my throat

so when my words come out of my mouth, they’re not drenched in blood.

I love you

more than my life

I’ve given you my life

it isn’t enough

if there is anything African women know a lot about it’s taking care of people

and guilt

because we should be doing a better job

of taking care of people

or maybe that’s just me.

it’s not that I’m angry

I’m not angry

or that I want anything.

just once though, I’d like to be able to call someone in my family for help

instead of always being the one that is supposed to help everyone.

this poem is a waste of time

and I never say shit like that

you hurt so much and I can’t fix it

the heartache of missing home, a broken heart that hasn’t healed

like the wound that has infected your leg

and that the doctors want to amputate

the pain will go away if they amputate

but what of the heartache?

if they amputated your heart

would the heartache go away?

I don’t mean to be morbid

I want to know what it would take

love letters to you don’t matter

the degrees I earn then leave the diplomas with you don’t matter

the books I’ve written & dedicated to you

the shows, the reverent way I speak of you

the prayer the prayer the prayers

the believing, the working and working to take care of you

it doesn’t matter.

your pain trumps it all

like an anvil dropped on an ant

or a butterfly set on fire

and I believe in love

more than your average human

I invite love in, take off her clothes, run her a coconut-scented bath, write to her, cook for her

in love’s name and wherever I see her in another, I reach for me, I mean I reach for the me I see in her,

open palms, full of believing

I should cry now. my mother is in the hospital. I am a hard rock. I am surprised at myself. I am not crying

my tears have so much company inside of myself

there’s a water park in my chest

this poem walks away from the crux of what brought me here

to these words

people who love me want to hold & comfort me

I act like I don’t need comfort,

swallow what feels like the beginning of falling water inside my nostrils

and the corners of my eyes,

into my brain

thinking myself into not feeling

I write poems for strangers and lick their day

leaving syllables sticking to their armpits, spine, fingertips.

I like to write uplifting poems

we can get through this poems

strong Naija woman poems

I do

I like to write poems that make goosehumps all over you

remind you of what’s in your chest

I like to write poems that illuminate the point

of all this

I don’t think this is uplifting

I don’t feel particularly sad or depressed, not distraught

like you’d expect one to feel when their mother is in the hospital

I don’t feel much actually, now that we’re talking about feelings

feelings are dangerous you know

especially mine

I have more feelings than opinions and trust me

I’m opinionated.

{this is unfinished

but I will stop here.}