#theloulette

[theloulette]

The sweet surprise

Of finding myself

In women not of my blood

Women wholly of my blood

Their names a prayer

Their wisdom, ritual

The blood work of rebellion

Dance as divination

Mother Moon and her many daughters

Generation after generation

Healers and magic workers

Sisterhood of the unsilenced 

The tide swells in darkness

The wave crashes on the shore

What must be destroyed is gone

And we remain

We are the ones who remain

[theloulette]

A mother is a field. Cancer is a scythe.

I have a well inside me.

No, a pitcher.

There is a pitcher inside me, 

deep,

wide,

brimming,

easily tipped

by the words ‘mother’

and ‘cancer’.

The first time it overflowed the mother was mine

and the cancer was hers.

She looked at me but her eyes didn’t settle

and it was terror that came out of me,

wet and fiery,

singeing me into silence.

My mother carried burdens,

high over our heads,

that put Atlas to shame.

It had not occurred

that there existed a sort

that might bow her

- crush me -

it was easy to forget

I lived in the shade of her sacrifice;

blossomed in soft sunlight,

bloomed because she did not know

that her strength was for her also.

There is a welling that has not stopped

since

the day she did not wake

to read my “get well soon. i love you.”

I meant:

“I’m sorry. I need you. You mustn’t leave me.

Let me help you. I know now, how hard woman is.

Help me. I need you. I’m waiting for you to come out of this.

I can’t be brave. I love you. Don’t leave me. Mummy.

Mummy.

Mummy.

Can you hear me?”

Some days I am drowning.

Some days I am not.

But always there is this pitcher,

easily tipped over

because what is worse

than the words ‘mother’

and ‘cancer’

together?

garbagemanvevo‘s gofundme post inspired this (it has reached its goal; there is hope for the world): http://www.gofundme.com/pqcmj0

[wordsforthestolen]

#BringBackOurGirls #OneYearLater

t-shirt designed by Nigerian streetwear brand #SkinyBlink