My mother decided you were better for me

She decided I would choose you

You came into my life inconveniently

I had a different idea about my life

 

I had a man that loved me whole

A body that slipped through cracks and holes

Was lithe with a mind full of plans

And with a concept of love, wrapped up in someone who,

Believed in a different god

And then you,

You gave me another option

 

Or so others thought

You gave me another identity, another future

Another dance to dance

That was preferred to the one with that man,

My man,

The man.

 

And so I chose you

They chose you

My mother choose you

 

Could I have chosen both?

A daring thought…

Dare I think?

Dare I dream?

Dare I want?

 

She said she’d be there

She’d support

She’d care

She’d be the mother to all

But not,

If my godly allegiance changed

 

And so, I choose you.

And so, I choose not to live the life I wanted

 

My life, a dancer dancing on a stage

A body in space

A woman of grace

And now;

It’s a different costume I wear

A different beaded yoke I bear,

Across my décolletage

 

I break my gaze from yours

Which looks at me pleading

Your needing,

Is complete

Makes me want to leave,

To leave you helpless

 

Because you see,

My child, my baby

I

Hate

You

 

I use to tell myself a little story, about how I really married the wrong the brother. How I met the right brother too late. How if only I had patience, like mother told me to, I would have had the right brother and life would have been sailing off into the sunset.

But instead I saw a vision of almost perfection and, as I had taught myself to believe, perfection doesn’t exist, so I grabbed with two hands this possibility of what my life could be like!

I wanted yellow and I got beige.

I wanted an apple and bit into a pear.

I was almost there.

It was almost right,

And that was enough for me to believe, to give up the fight.

I had a dream of what my life could be like,

A dream I dreamt whilst others whispered white wedding dresses and ponies to themselves in the darkness of night.

I dreamed of adventures in far off lands,

Of pursuits, of hidden treasure and intellectual hands,

Covering my body and leading me to places my mind feared to go.

I saw him hand me these dreams and I saw that he could provide them all.

But I forgot to take into consideration his terrible personality.

And so, if I had been the good daughter my mother wanted me to be, one of patience and virtue, of all the right dreams, I would have got the right brother.

And that’s the little story I use to tell myself.

The story I will tell you. And the story I will always tell my mother.

But.

I wanted yellow but I chose beige

If I scream in an empty room, will you hear me?

She asked

Because sometimes this feels like an empty room

She said

When you rush past me, in your busy moments,

With colours I don’t recognise,

Sounds that don’t feel familiar,

And smells that itch my skin,

My toes inch forward, in slow motion, across the cobblestones,

Whilst you whirl and whirl about me.

She whispered

Bodies blurring into an air stream,

Around me.

She breathed

I want to feel walls, I want to touch the sides

Know there are boundaries,

My fingers trailing across wood, stone, brick.

Floor solid under my feet

Something I can grip on to

Something I know is mine

Something I can be enclosed in

Something to hide me from the rush of all this new-ness

She wailed.

But no one heard, in this new life of hers

From the jungle we come, in the jungle we stay.

Carrying home with us in a handful of water;

The river that takes us, returns us and moves us.

My story, your story, our story, bound together from the same beginning,

Changing as time and space moves us apart.

I’ll tell you my story and you tell me yours.

And we’ll sit together and talk of days I don’t remember and you can’t forget…

You tell me how it all used to be and ask why it had to change.

Where did you go? And why did you leave?

You ask again and again.

At least you returned, no matter the time,

At least you returned, my child, my sister, my friend.

 

 

This started as a PhD project, and is growing…

Where it will end up post its PhD life, I don’t know!

Bear with me as I get this new site started.