Waves

Mama,

I’m sorry.

I could say those words so many times

But I know that they will just echo in this cavern within me.

I feel as if I’m destined to sit in this forgotten space

With the gentle drip of tears running down these stalagmites in my chest

And this great storm rolling across the landscape of my mind.

I’m holding my arms as if my fingertips can pull back the warmth that was once there;

Doing my best to remember your touch when it was motherly and soft,

never cold or threatening,

My hands are still shaking and the past threatens to consume me.

When I was little you could hold me and I was never the wiser.

We have never been polar, never black and white -

Always just shades of blue overlapping like the water on the shoreline.

These days I find those shaded blues have darkened with stormy weather.

Like the sand and the sea,

Your ground shifting but present,

And my waves desperately pulling away just to crash against you again and again.

I know I see you more in pictures than I see you in the flesh

But I remember that your eyes are just as glossy and your smile just as fake.

Those photos trap stagnant stares, and the falsity captured in them is concealed by shadows.

I can tell that these waves within me were never meant to move.

They were once just a quiet pool within the cavern I dug in my chest,

But time opened me up and the chasm’s walls eroded away,

Now I feed into this ocean.

I’ve become a part of this monstrous grief that beats away at the world

And I never meant for this to turn out this way.

I like to imagine you didn’t either.

But the water is rising and the storm keeps building.

And I’m left in this darkening horizon tormented by the wind and echoing the sounds of lightning.

Mama,

Can we just go back to simpler times?

Those days when I did not harbor empty spaces,

Days without the waves crashing violently around us.

Can we just pretend that we still have real things to hold to?

I’ve grown out my hair,.

If I came back

Would you let me sit on the couch as you braid it?

I’ve painted this picture but will you ever see it?

Mama,

I have so much more left to ask you.

I have so much more left to learn.

I’ve built wave breakers of excess stones

And I’ve willed the wind to calm.

So would you be able to hear me?

Or is this storm within my head too loud?