She Has Shaped Me

I am five.

Swirling in a kaleidoscope of my own imagination

the background a dark shade of soft, green grass.

I hear my Mother call to me,

my feet run to her

instinct finding my way into the throne she has built for me in her crossed legs.

I know I am the Queen of this kingdom,

within my Mother’s walls nothing could ever touch me.

I am eleven.

Sitting on the staircase. Still.

my imagination is of good use, flying me away

But. I hear my Mother again

this time she is not calling my name

She sobs, calling for the past,

her husband, she calls for water

to put out her angry flames that already burned him forever

I learn, a Mother’s fire has hands of its own

PRESSING SHAPING PULLING

Now, your soul is unrecognizable

I wonder who will protect me now.

I am eighteen.

Walking, for the first time in a year, into my mother’s arms

my background, still sparking with the light of my last adventure

the scholarship, the foreign country, the freedom

the best year of my life

It is a bittersweet tongue that tastes my new, yet old, life

The renewed feelings toward my mother,

I can’t wait to try them

but, as her arms engulf me, I realize

I am Queen once again,

yet, this time

it is not my mother’s body that protects me

it is the waterfalls I built to stop her flames

I wonder if I will drown.