English is not my mother's first language.

so, she is always stumbling on

its intricacies

The grammatical structures,

and words that spell differently

Than they sound.

 

My mother feels we make a mockery of the dead

By remembering them more fondly than

We ever felt about them.

​

My mother hates most movie endings

and finds them convoluted

Sometimes I want to ask her,

“How could you keep getting buried

and get held back by your past

for so long?”

 

My mother has recently developed a

Morbid curiosity towards mechanical breathing machines,

She often makes printouts of all the new developments

That is happening in the field of respiratory monitoring.

Hyphenating all the science argot as she pores over them

Which she later sends to me to make sense of.

​

My mother says the smell of the highlighter

Makes her nauseous

And its spring green colour

Hurts her eyes.

She says next time I see her,

I should get her a

Fuchsia colored highlighter that

Makes a swish sound

Unlike her spring green one,

Which is more scrappy than swish.

 

My mother has never asked me to not die

completely (or at all).

 

My mother does not know

How I am always thinking of killing myself

And I intentionally do not

let her read anything that I write.

 

My mother and I share a

great many unspeakable fears

We are both equally worried about

Missing out on a spring just coming to life 

(or)

What we will leave

behind for the people

We care about.

 

My mother asks me to make a list of her

Things I want after her passing,

and all I can come up with is

Her emerald ring engraved with an S with a

spear going through it

And her loneliness.

​

My mother laughs at my suggestion

In a decibel that does not fully translate

Over the newfangled devices we use.

​

//​

​

My mother has recently retired

And has taken up twining

and reading my copy

of Rilke in the afternoons.

​

My mother and I hate

The same things about my father.

Unlike me, she has made her

Peace with it,

Unlike me, she does not

Find language inadequate

And sometimes I wonder,

“if my mother is the only person

who needs me to still be here?”

 

As the noise dies down

and a humorless cyan blue evening takes over

I become so indulgent in my own

Downfall, I cannot see anything past it

​

My mother still does not know

I want to kill myself every day

Yet she still asks me to

Hold on, and keep adding

To the list of her things

I want her to leave behind.

​

But my voice breaks,

and I can never say it back,

“You hold on too. I will see you soon

with fuchsia colored highlighters

and a

science glossary”.