About the Maternal Instinct

[evieshka]

Time Travel

The sound of ice in a glass at any time past 9:30 at night
is the one thing in this world
that I genuinely fear

because the glass tilts
the ice rattles against the sides
and I am eight years old again

i am small and brittle
and I have stayed up late

i have seen the woman who takes your place after dark
and she has seen me
we are known to one another, introduced with the rattle of ice and the glazed look
of your eyes now hers
and she and I will be come well-acquainted over the next twenty years

ice is time travel in a glass
but for some reason it can only take me as far back as the night I met my monster

not a moment before.



Unconditional

you told me you had me
because you wanted someone to love you unconditionally

to test the limits of my love
(to make sure it had been worth it to bear down and push me from womb to world)
you poured alcohol down your throat until your bleeding heart was a buoy in an ocean of the stuff
until your lungs breathed ethanol
until your tongue was coated in a thick and bitter residue that gave sharp edge to words

and then you gave me a lit match

and demanded I come near

to see if I would burn alive with you -

Thank (dog)god(?) I have never good at doing what was expected of me.

I'm not sure what love looks like when it's unconditional. However, I'm confident that there's not supposed to be an out-of-control forest fire, or a mushroom cloud.

It didn't have to be an emergency for me to love you. I didn't need to become a natural disaster.



Conditional

This is the part where I'm supposed to say I love my mother no matter what
because she is my mother.

...

I've never been good at doing what was expected of me.




Sidenote

I had to put years and miles between us
before I could understand
how you could love me
enough to hate me.