i
The morning you were made to leave she sat on the front steps,
dress tucked between her thighs, a packet of Marlboro Lights near
her bare feet, painting her nails until the polish curdled. Her
mother phoned– ‘What do you mean he hit you? Your
father hit me all the time but I never left him. He pays the
bills and he comes home at night, what more do you want?’
Later that night she picked the polish off with her front teeth
until the bed you shared for seven years seemed speckled with
glitter and blood.
ii
On the drive to the hotel, you remember the funeral you went to
as a little boy, double burial for a couple who burned to death
in their bedroom. The wife had been visited by her
husband’s lover, a young and beautiful woman who paraded
her naked body in the couple’s kitchen, lifting her dress
to expose breasts mottled with small fleshy marks, a back sucked
and bruised, then dressed herself and walked out of the front
door. The wife, waiting for her husband to come home, doused
herself in lighter fluid. On his arrival she jumped on him,
wrapping her legs around his torso. The husband, surprised at her
sudden urge, carried his wife to the bedroom, where she straddled
him on their bed, held his face against her chest and lit a
match.
iii
A young man greets you in the elevator. He smiles like he has
pennies hidden in his cheeks. You’re looking at his shoes
when he says ‘the rooms in this hotel are sweltering. Last
night in bed I swear I thought my body was on
fire’.
Warsan Shire //
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
AutumnSadness · 7 years ago
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I love this booklet with all my heart