your pupils are dilated, like our mother’s when she cried
which wasn’t often, but when she cried–remember when she cried? –it was like waterfalls were gushing out of her irises
like the whole of the jordan river was drowning out her body
and neither of us could tame the rapids or save her from her own salt
weeping like the willows in our garden
hiding like the ghosts inside her mind
absent like the records at our school
yet, we were somehow so attached to her grasp–like a child holding onto a– –sometimes, even we forget she is our mother
her embrace, though it seldom came, was so saccharine it was sedating hypersomnia overtaking our infantile bodies
skin and bone, our teacher called us, though we were far from infants almost grown, yet withering away–up until our presence in the classroom withered along with us, waning like the moon, except we never seemed to wax
the whites of your eyes were like the moon, too, until they turned mud-scarlet like the blood spilled over our once-cream bathroom tiles
when the limp frame of a mother with too many pills hung over the tub now you, too, understand what it means for water to seep out from under your lashes me? i was spared the saline–and all i had to do was disappear
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