“My Answer of Love is You.” Embroidery Confessions Iviva Olenick
Entry #221 dated March 04, 21’
Many of you believe (my) poetry is a battle rhyme. All the wars I’ve waged, I’ve lost. In the name of love. I have a god complex for redemption through salvaging others from the shipwreck of myself ? Poetry is a way to be found, in this labyrinth of loneliness; to be seen, in shades of intimacy; to be loved, when one is lost…
I shut my laptop again, when I hear her footsteps approaching. My mother enters my room with an air of entitlement. “It’s prayer time”, she says. “Give me five ?” I ask her. She lingers by the door. Unlike my nature of reticence, my mother cannot sit with her thoughts without spitting them out like sapota seeds hitting the back of a spoon. “Did you upset that poor girl again ? She’s going through a great deal of stress, now is when you can actually be supportive; you see your sister going through the same thing. It’s not easy.” You see, my mother sees what she wants to see; my side of the story is usually a blindspot. “She’s just studying. I’ll speak to her, don’t worry.” I reassure her. “I pray for her often and I think of her like my own daughter.” Only cause she’s Christian. “Okay Ma” I tell her. She turns to leave the room, I jolt my laptop back open slightly. Mother harks back “Why are you so indifferent to us ?” “What did I do? I didn’t even say anything”, I plead. “That’s the problem isn’t it ? You don’t do anything. You barely ever step out of this room. Your father is anxious about your future. All I get are a few words out of you. The only real thing you ever say is within those blank pages you share with your internet friends.” My tongue is stuck in her rat trap, I make a home in that discomforting silence.
I fathom the words in compliance. “I only want a moment to breathe” I tell her. She lays it on me with a left hook. “You’re at your best when you’re rife with excuses.” Most of my scars are from her words; I tell no one. An uppercut. “Don’t you have anything to say?” she demands.
Ma, you know you do that thing where you bog me down with this verbal onslaught and I forget to speak; no chance of being heard. The faculty of listening is lost on you, which has made it incredibly difficult for me to navigate this terrain of communication in my relationships too. I burrow inside this hole of my own which most people don’t understand, so I invent language all over again. I try to make them understand but no one stays long enough to learn. It’s difficult living the same cycle of misunderstanding but I’m trying so hard and I’m tired all the time. I step out of the safety of my mind, I scrunch my toes and answer. “No, I’m just tired”, I tell her. “It must be because you were doing the dishes all day, walking the dog and cleaning up after, going to the doctor…” she pokes at an open wound. “Ma, please”, I beg her. Another laceration, close to an artery.
In a perfect world, you would be standing at the edge of the horizon besides me, holding my hand, seeing how far we can throw our voices into the ocean. It’s ironic how you should be an abode for love, yet all I want to do is run away from home. I hold myself together in refusal to be vulnerable in front of her. “You got to make your choices, be with the person you love, build the life you dreamt of. Why don’t I get the same chance to be… happy ?” I ask her. “You can’t make a choice. You’re a confused boy. Now, please just talk to that girl. Make us proud and do it right.” she snickers. I choke on blood and words.
I rub the corner of my eye, from where a stray tear wants to escape. No woman has ever broken my heart, quite the way she has. My mother. Tears erupt over the landscape of my skin. Love has always been too far out of reach for me. “It’s just not fair,” I whimper.
She kisses my forehead and whispers slyly, “Life isn’t meant to be fair.”
