"
For all the tragedy porn lovers who ask me if mother knows what happened to me: my mother knows.
My mother knows something is wrong with me. My mother knows what they did my mother knows she wish she knew what they were doing before they did it but my mother knows she’ll never be able to fix that.
My mother knows I carry heavy worlds in my belly and bleeding rivers on my skin. My mother knows I collect tongues. My mother knows I always will. My mother knows I know heartbeat, she knows I know heartache, she knows I know heartrace better than she does. My mother knows I will know things she will never know.
I know my mother knows that I know what she knows but what my mother does not know is how to make me unknow all the things my mother did not teach me to know.
My mother knows I carry memories like forests rooted deeply into me, sucking all the nutrients from this over planted soil that my mother calls ‘how you used to be’. My mother knows how to light a match but my mother does not know how to burn away the elder sows of things I know without burning me as well. My mother knows I have been burned before. My mother knows she has inhaled the ashes but she knows she inhaled them far too late. My mother knows she will always wish she saw the smoke.
And what my mother does not know what to do with this tropical overgrown disaster she used to know as her daughter. So my mother does what my mother knows best what to do which is to pretend she does not know at all.
