I want to look at you
in a new way,
through the alternate lens,
the crystal of forgiveness.

For I have hated you…
mother,
and feared your dark world
bubbling up and
over.

I was a child then and did not
see what you saw …
your body taken…
who did know?

A part of you removed
bringing grief until death.

No one wanted to know,
back them.

You were a fucked-up mother,
tied up in your own rage,
walled away in this cage,
that holds your broken life.

And every now and again,
you come out…out to me…
a glimpse of you before the Fall,
when the deadly serpent had not come
and spread his poison in your soul.

I did not know this then…
I was a child
and only saw the castle that
you defended in your loneliness,
in your loss.

That is all I saw, and also heard your words
devilish raging in screams profane.

Now let me look again at this
woman that gave me birth,
look with uncluttered clarity,
look for what I have not seen:
your passion,
your will,
your searing intelligence,
your wish to live a life beyond the lie
and call out the cruelty
that held you in its claws.

In all these things that I now see,
in all these things
I see me.

 

28/5/2024