MOTHER

There's no greater title

My love,

Thank you for being patient with me

while I grappled with the identity of ‘mother’

distracted by the faux-feminist voices that would shout 

‘But you’re SO MUCH MORE than a mother’

To which I would hastily nod

but which had me back away from the greatest title I could hold

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Thank you for loving me 

with a purity that breaks my heart

as I struggled in that early phase 

when I couldn’t figure out who to be

until I cracked open to the privilege of being loved by you

and how there could be nothing else that defines Love

like the way you plant kisses all over my face

and say ‘you’re so peshious mama’

---

Thank you for bearing with me

while I underestimated the simplicity 

of what you needed from me

and tried on ‘conscious’ parenting techniques

regurgitating scripts that didn’t even feel like the answer

until I woke up to how authentic mothering IS revolutionary mothering

and how I was clearly missing the point

---

Thank you for reminding me that

there’s nowhere else to be

when you pull my finger excitedly to the water’s edge

and every cell in my body bursts with joy

while timelines are spontaneously, momentarily suspended

and I realise, this very same magical moment my mother had with me

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Thank you for teaching me how motherhood

is SO MUCH more fun

when I’m free from trying to be good at it

free from trying to escape it

and free from trying to heal it

because this way

I have a F ton more energy for it

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Thank you for showing me how the most powerful thing a mama could do

is to own this title: ‘Mother’

because how could any man, any father, or any institution

awaken to the sanctity of this role

if she’s still fighting it in herself?

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