On a bad day, when I feel like giving up
I seek the comfort of my mother’s arms
The feeling of stability she resonates
I find relief in her arms
The comfort of finding the one you look up to the most
The feeling of warmth that spreads through you
Even if it can’t fill the hollowness in your chest
It makes you feel loved for just a second
For a moment I forget the problems I have
The fights I have with her disappear
Silence envelopes us for those moments and
I don’t have to keep my guard up
In those moments, we just exist
Peacefully, beautifully
She showed me a post that said
“When in doubt, follow your mother”
All I could do was laugh in my mind
Following her?
Being a mini version of her?
I was already that
I hid myself in conflict
I gave in when there was a fight
I collapsed into myself
Tried to fold myself as small as I could
All in the hope that
Maybe now I could fit
I learnt to get hurt
It was okay to get hurt because they love you
Hurting someone means you love them, and they love you
It is better to hurt than to be alone
I learnt these things from my mother
These are the life lessons she has given me
I see all the women in my family duplicate themselves
They all try to make the next one independent
They tell them to be unlimited but always in a limited way
You should be career oriented, but you can never forget family
Having space is good but you can never demand it
Boundaries are important but not in the family sphere
Be social, have friends, but don’t go out too much
Friends can’t be family. You can’t tell them about abuse
Abuse is meant to be confined in the four walls
Let the hit come, let the words sting
It will feel like a hurricane
You will feel your self esteem shatter to bits
But you still must be graceful when you fall
Your established boundaries and the need for basic respect is too much an ask
You must learn from the women before you
They survived so far and so must you
But I try to betray these patterns
Try to stray away
Only to be pulled in deeper
Nobody lets you leave these behaviours behind
They don’t want you to have space
You should have no spine
You should continue to fold
Continue to make yourself smaller and try to fit in
I can’t fold any further.
My seven folds are over
And I am still not small enough to fit
I used to think you are unbreakable and you could never be wrong
But I see you try again and again
Pressing down
Asking for a little more and more and more
But this is where I tear
This is my goodbye
Wabi-Sabi 