Mother

After my mother passed away in 2015, Susan Frybort wrote this poem about my relationship with her. Perhaps some of this will resonate with your lived experience. The patterns that thread forward, unless and until we find a way to shift them. As I work my way through my political nightmare, I only wish my mother was still here. To keep me afloat. To remind me of my fire. To deal with those drug-addled invisi-bullies that manipulated and blackmailed people I love so that they turned against me, in my hour of need. If nothing else, she would give them the courage to turn them all in. People often ask me how I survived the last 4 + years of techno-terrorism and in-person intimidation. My usual response: “They never met my mother.” If she was alive, God protect them all :).

MOTHER

We were nomads roaming

the urban land, moving from one

apartment building to the next,

our home a domestic battleground.

We, two comrades, at odds

in a household where love

was not a colorful banquet

nor a ravishing display of affections,

but mysterious clues scrawled out

between the shouting, tiny words written

over blank stares and crumpled spirits

stuffed into a cheap glass bottle,

repressed then tossed out into the windy seas.

What remained would wash ashore for me

to cipher your soul's message on a distant day.

Until then, you became a threatening shadow

I learned to avoid in other women.

Maybe you were delicate inside, maybe you were fragile.

I couldn't easily see beneath the emotional covering

you slathered on in cold cream layers every night.

Or was that your war paint?

You were a tyrant dressed up in a riddle, to me.

You were a fierce warrior inside a broken-hearted clown.

You could not break me while I am left to overcome you.

You were the sculptor that chiseled my fierce drive,

the storm that I learned to fear.

You are the memory of indifference and pain.

You were the one who defended me, for you knew

I'd prevail and defend an entire hurting world.

You were certain I'd rise

to the occasion, yet again-

convinced I would make it

to the surface and win.

Oh mother, even as I stop to cherish you,

I'm left with the bitter aftertaste

from the caustic dream

we lived.