- On Mothers

- on mothers

lady bird/ @death-born-aphrodite/ everything, everywhere, all at once/ rupi kaur/ unknown/ maia baia/ your best american girl- mitski/ lady bird/ unknown/ @inkskinned

sometimes i wonder if death is all i can write about.

every poem i recite seems mournful, like i'm preparing for a funeral that i'm somehow sure will happen. it follows me, the death. its stench. the sorrow. it follows me and i'm so sick and tired of it. somedays i even think of stopping writing altogether, because what's the point? every word i put down on paper will be pitch black anyway and it will scream and weep of the same old tragedies that will make everyone's ears bleed time and time again.

but then i remember.

i remember writing about soft smiles and booming laughter. i remember writing about tears being wiped away by patient fingers, i remember writing the words, "i love you, i love you, i love you," like a hymn, a prayer, like a holy scripture. i remember writing about you. you, with your garden of water hyacinths, tiger lilies, and grins that are a little too sharp to make a person feel comfortable (just like mine). you with your poems that feel like a beating piece of your heart, with your messy hair, boundless excitement, and fingers painted with the rainbow. i remember us: sitting cross-legged in places we shouldn't be sitting in, talking about everything and nothing and feeling at home with each other ("you're my family"). i remember writing about adoration, love and friendship. i remember, then: death is not all i write about.

my writing is not about death or sorrow at all, actually. my writing is a sweet caress of words singing,

"hey, can you hear me?

i just wanted to say:

i love you. i love you, i love you,

i love you and my dear,

you make loving so painless."

i write about love time and time again, i write about you, i write about us. huh. maybe in a way, i do write about death. with us, love lives and laughs and when we're apart, dies, only to rise up from the ashes brighter than the goddamn sun when you see me the next day and we both grin.

i write and it says, "hey, can you hear me?"

and you do, every time.

and you say, "i love you."

I want to yell at the top of my lungs, "i love you i love you i love you so fuckin much i adore you"

but instead, i smile and hold you close. Instead, i write my silly little letters and hope they ring a million times louder than my voice ever could.

can't say that 2023 was my favorite

Louise Glück, from “Stars”, Poems: 1962–2020