My Mother, Part 2
My mother asks me what I want, and I say love
She does not know I mean love from her
She only knows love as the meaning of eumsik. Food.
To fill the belly, she says.
Then what of my heart?
Her mouth is webbed across a series of countries,
Her tongue unable to shape what it means to speak simply in the American language
Her gaping mouth in the shape of an O, the only distinguishable feature of her being her eyes as I watch as more lines continue to appear with her smiles.
I watch as she melts across the floor, her delicate grace a culmination of culture.
I watch as others view her with rejection,
Their pride throwing away the possibility of foreign relations
It ostensibly being nothing but a mere ideology for them. I scoff.
I tell her, strength is a virtue. As if I should be the one telling her. When
the only existence of my mother being from something that is not pictured.
–nor remembered.
Her woven hands are clasped behind her back,
Her eyes and small stature the only representations of what it means to be her
Death is only a picture in which our lives have been lined over.
This is not my home. This is not my home.
She slowly stuffs food into my mouth one by one, until there is no room left except for water.
which fills my holes and aches in my body
It is the first thing I notice
As I drown in the sinking fat of my full cheeks. She picks on my clothes, on the way I dress.
Where is my throat when I need it most?
Just to have a reason still holding me down, feet steady on the floor.
As I watch as she slowly erases down her history with the simple slice of her chopsticks
clack, clack.
Clack, clock.
She cannot see as I run away
From all bounds
And remainders
Of me and her
I am only accustomed to
Soft hands and bright eyes
Not dull ones that rip me away from my heart. Its talons
gleaming in the light of what used to be mine.
The food passes through my empty ribcage
Devoid of her.
Her way of saying I love you.
When I come home
Home is where she is
Let me be home.
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