Memory as fiction
No, I, I can’t put mothering
Into words, it’s stronger than love
It’s the torch bearing of all knowing
All feeling, all being, a desperate
Bond of instinct at 6 AM
We’re all amateur translators
Don’t you think? The letters appear
With meanings private to us
And we read the long distances
Between the death of our parents
And the birth of our children
What if, we never have children?
Do you ever lay in bed awake at night
Wondering the same thing?
No, I, I won’t put it into words
I never had much angsty personal space
Just words, letters, poems like lost journals
Nothing else to capture anyone else’s pages
It wasn’t poignant now I realize
I mostly strove to bond with intangible things
Maybe my Mother loved me too much
As if to compensate for things she didn’t do
We are all amateur historians though
Don’t you find? Creating with the utmost caution
From scraps from our younger self
The more definite way we want to remember things.
Wuji Seshat 