Unconditional Love

Unconditional Love

I. Unnoticed, when I slipped out from between your woven figures,
the ones that begged me to stay at your side
at all times.
No matter how many candles I’d spit on this year
or how many tests I took
I still wasn’t ready for the real world.
In your opinion,
I still needed to wear your safety-hands around my body,
hugging me close to your soft-breasted-seat
because you are
Mother.

II. I didn’t believe you when you called me lost;
I thought I owned every map of my internal organs
and knew better
than to stick close to my blood stream.
Now, I see you as the womanwho gave me my bones.

You knew more about me, than I knewmyself.

III. I pretended not to see your hands
when you offered me them,
expecting me to grab on for dear life
expecting I wanted a protector, a guardian, a savior,
an everything-I-needed-at-this-moment-and-more.
I was stubborn,
because I learned it was better
to sit on the lost-and-found
and wait.
I wanted escape, excitement, fear. Not
You.

IV. I didn’t believe you when you said
to see the speed of light by the sound
of time rushing past my ears
on trains moving too fast
to be caught
leaving us stranded on a platform
of almost goodbyes.
to taste the sea salted city by the sight
of weather crusted sailors,
with sour lips and wistful eyes
yearning to find earth woven hearts,
to hear the thud of my pulse by the feeling
of muscle contractions
in my fluttering veins.

I didn’t think my organs could work that way,
tangled in each other’s paths.

V. I believed you when I tasted
the bitter salt sugar clinging to my
mothering eyes, when
two small hands pulled
at the cracks between my figures,
begging to be let go
too soon.