REALITY IN MOTION BY EMMA MCCLAIN
I wake up in my mother ’ s room The room she lived in When my grandmother was just a mother And my mother was just a kid
Down the hallway is a bulletin board Comic strips cut out of newspapers published before I was born A CASTLE MADE OF SAND , WE BUILT AND Pictures of my mom and her sisters when they SCULPTED , MELTED AWAY SO EASILY BY were my age Cards THE PUSH announcing AND engagements PULL OF THE , weddings DEEP BLUE , babies A collection of little snippets of countless lives Held together with clear push pins
In the bathroom I stop and look in the mirror I wonder how many times my mother stood in this very spot Practicing her smile or laugh I wonder if she thought her freckles looked funny Or hated the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled
I wonder if she counted down the days until she moved out Imagining herself sitting cross legged in a tiny office cubicle Overworked yet finding freedom in her independence
Sometimes I forget that she was a person A before CASTLE she MADE was a mother OF SAND , WE BUILT AND
SCULPTED But here the , MELTED evidence AWAY surrounds SO meEASILY BY Here THE PUSH it ’ s easier AND to imagine PULL OF my THE mother DEEP as BLUE a teenager Picture her green eyes before they carried the weight of exhaustion And her dreams gave way to reality And I wonder when does this change happen ? Do people erode away Little by little Year after year Or could I wake up tomorrow and have already forgotten who I was the day before ?
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