Europa - Mother
Date: 06 July 2015
Satellite: Galileo
Depicts: Europa
Copyright: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Mother
I sketched out the constellations in my notebooks and knew the name of every star
and when mom was home
and wasn’t busy
we’d lay on the driveway and look at the sky at night until the
light pollution wrapped it up and hid it away.
She got me a telescope for my birthday.
The popcorn of the ceiling has some of the constellations in it I’ve counted fifty-seven so far and when the phone rang I didn’t answer it
When I got claustrophobic mom would sit down with me and tell me about a place that was nothing but
space
and then she would go there
leaving me behind
on earth
here
so I followed her. It took years and years and years and years
she wanted me to go
and I made it. To that place that’s all silence and light and the whisper of machinery and there’s only a few feet of metal and cloth and plastic between you and nothing
and it was wonderful
when she said she was proud of me the words sounded like a language I didn’t know because I’d never heard them before but I knew they made me happy until she left again
left me here on earth with Columba and Grus and Aquila and Ursa Minor in paint and plaster over my bed and nothing to do but think and think and think
when I go to the store i hear a baby crying
even though
i don’t know why
I can understand that she’s saying mother turn your face to me for I am afraid
I am afraid of the dark and the bright and the open and the big and the loud and mother help me
mother
the world is so much it’s too much mother help me
and then she stops crying and I don’t know why either but she’s realised she’s alone
then I wipe my eyes and buy my milk and go home to see if I can find Cassiopeia
This is another poem that I wrote a while ago, but unlike the last one (There Is Nothing More Powerful than Absence), I remember what this one was about. I think I might like to continue it.
It’s strange how sometimes the things you write that are farthest out of your normal style and comfort zone seem the most powerful, but for me at least, I can’t read this short poem without some feelings happening.
As someone who deals with depression as a part of my regular life, I think this might be one of the truest representations that I’ve written of what it really feels like, and I hope that if and when I share more with you, I can sustain that honesty in the text.
Thank you, as usual, for reading.
