A Requiem for Shireen
In the quiet moments after I unwind your fears and expectations from my neck, and the slowed rhythm of my breath is my only company, who am I in the absence of you?
I rework the question with my hands, my fingertips caught on the knots of discomfort, trailing it’s threads with feigned confidence - as If I am unafraid of what answers I’ll unravel.
It would be much easier to hold my breath and pull you tighter - to smooth the contours of your face, conceal the shadows of my loneliness, and melt my limbs with the outline of the woman you could never be.
Who am I in the absence of you? My mother who has hidden herself along the journey from continent to altar. A dark skinned girl with shinning teeth and unfulfilled dreams. I know you have lost me just as you, perhaps, lost yourself.
I am trying to decipher a woman who has never voiced her pain, only mastered how to swallow its sharp edges with her morning tea. You have always been something to someone. You have always endured quietly and on your own.
So who am I in the absence of you? My mother who has never been a woman unto herself - woman free of limitation and ancestral obligation. To answer this looming question is a fight to know you and who you wished to be.
My fingers still, too nervous to move forward and tell this truth. That I have no answers, no blueprint, and no roadmap back to you. The woman I am, in your absence, is in pain.
She is a child in the shadows of your obligations, reaching out to clasp your hand to only feel the remnants of your distance. I long for your closeness but must make due with your judgment.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
This too wide, too dark, too fleshy and too sensitive body brims beyond the limits of your comfort. You cannot encourage a girl child turned woman without clipped wings and a loosened tongue. You cannot love her, love me, because you are afraid.
You carried death in the same place you gave me life. Perhaps we are both mourning what could have been. A cancer, silent in its spread, left warnings of destruction in its path. It clawed away the soft comfort of my first home, tucked away beneath your rib cage and the slow beating of your heart.
Born a brown skinned American dream turned into a too difficult reality, perhaps I am hard to love. It is easy to forget, how the crook of your arms felt like home and the way your voice was once my compass.
Who am I in the absence of you? My mother who made me in her image, but now a reflection of your distaste. Who am I to you?
