-the unsent letter

I hate when you

say you love me

or miss me

I gave up on you

after the countless times

you pushed away my outstretched hands

I cried away my love

when you told me

I was ugly

when I sat in the scorching water

of the bathtub

hoping to burn away my skin

shrink my body

anything to be more like you

I stopped missing you

when your embrace

reminded me of how your hands

shook me to exorcise imagined demons from my soul

I grew tired of you mocking my pain

hurting me because he hurt you

I grew afraid of the indiscernible

memory of you touching me

when I stopped wanting you to love me

or miss me

I was free

to love myself

and within me

I

cultivated fields of flowers.

now your ceaseless

belated love

feels like the suffocation

of an already drowning body

so, please

be

quiet

mother,

let me heal

– mother’s day 2018

 

Featured image by Goelle Cousin

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