to the woman who raised him

i’ve never stepped into your home, but i’ve lived in the shelter of your son. he’s made of kindness and all things gentle. he is soft where my world was sharp and i know that softness came from you. all the months you spent creating every tendon and bone have brought life to the abandoned corners of a home i never got to share with my own kin. every second that he has spent being yours is another second added to the years i would let myself live.

the weight of motherhood falls on my shoulders like a man  nailed to the ceiling, bringing ‌your world down to pieces. i have grown up in a slaughterhouse of dreams and screams. where love was a currency too scarce to spend. i have grown up believing men to be the embodiment of rancor- one who chased my little feet to put a dagger to my neck, another who harrowed my existence till everything inside me went pitch black. between all of this, hundreds of miles away, someone was dreaming of astronomy and learning kindness as his mother tongue. in building him you have built me a love that speaks to my soul and picks up my father’s half-done fatherhood from the floor. in building him you have built me a home that will never know empty dinner tables or stinging palms to your face. 

i have been outside your son’s door like a stray in his city, asking him if i can be his. someday i’ll be in your living room, with one of the yellow cushions on my lap while i hear about the home that is bursting and blooming with your love. maybe you can show me all it took to become this tender and i will tell you of all the ways that tenderness has found it’s way to me. in a way, from a distance you’ve kept me safe too.  so much that the only thing i want to hang these days, is polaroids of his face above my bed. 

nibir/ georgia, georgia, i love your son