mother

my mother told me that i'm not supposed to cry
not allowed to be angry
not supposed to be afraid
so i carry it around with me,
in back pockets, on shirt collars, buried in cuff links.


mother said that "i have to do, what has to be done"
not because i want to
but because
i have to.


so i work and i fight for things
i don't necessarily need
because,
my children
are their father's lies and their mother's dream,
they are the only heaven i know.


i'm not supposed to cry, not supposed to be afraid,
not allowed to be angry, so i carry it on my shoulders
praying that my angels will never have to.




since friday i've had 52 cents to my name (i got paid that same friday), i tell myself that it is what it is, the bills have to be paid and the kids have to be fed, and somehow i explain to them that mommie can't afford the luxuries of going bowling, or ordering pizza. life is hard but single parenting is harder especially when you know that their fathers don't give a damn much less know their middle names (Da'Naja and Bre'Sean)... so i think about the beginning....in the beginning there was me, and later a seed was planted, a seed i didn't want, and in that same beginning there was mother, and when she learned of the seed she wanted to water it, when I wanted to abort it...and now that we are living in the future i think about the why and how, on her 52nd birthday as i am making her a card and writing her a poem.... i write two one from the heart and one from the deepness of my pain...in the beginning i would have said words that hurt, but now i cannot, not knowing the deepness of her own pain...i can only imagine it but i cannot question it, because my own pain won't allow it...