My Mother in Telephone Calls.

 I sip this tea: herbal, acai berry, ginseng:

Desperate for healing

But mostly overwhelmed:

What does it mean to be a Mother?

I live strive rise up every morning wanting to heal myself and all the past generations

Lay this mantle on both my shoulders

Struggle even just to walk and wonder: How did I get here?

I speak to my mother on the phone and she reminds me

That parents in her day took their children to the cellar and beat them with straps

"Not that I'm saying to do that, but I'm just saying", she says.

I know it

I know and I remember

"I feared my parents," she says.

Yes, I know. You made me fear you too: I feared you.

And so when the towel is not hung up in the bathroom

And the candy wrappers are not in the trash

And I creep into my child's bathroom at two in the morning to clean the toilet even when it is their job am I healing generational trauma or spoiling my teenagers into oblivion: did we gain so much from our pain?

Better to sit across from your teen with hot cocoa than have them hide in their room from you, pronounce the words yes ma'am or yes sir with trembling lips until one day they stride confidently past you because they grew up and realized that you were nothing good for them and you didn't know what the actual fuck you were doing.

I know you did your best.

What you thought was best.

I feared you.

So I was obedient.

Was it worth it?

The White-ness of the Whale (The Plight of the Stay at Home Mother Part 2)

I used to be
A literary scholar

I waxed poetic about
whales and whiteness and waves and metaphors that meant: the personification of the plight of Ireland.

I never
even
liked
that
book

But Melville was somehow better

Than laundry/dishes/dishracks/mud-stained carpets/sweeping/washing windows/endless washing

Somehow

Standing in front of thirty unrelated teenagers felt like living

And now
Sitting in front of a computer screen with cups of coffee and trying to find something to do with my useless time I can't help feeling like

Failing

Is all that I ever accomplish

No sooner have I learned how to do something than that something changes and I'm supposed to

cherish every moment

I just wonder:

What has become of me.

The Plight of the Stay-At-Home Mother

Nothing really happens.

At other jobs there is the illusion of things happening.
Each day a little different.
Something you can call "adventure" or
"heroism": maybe you "saved the day" today

at work

at your job

And even if

In the grand scheme of things

Your job affects

Literally nothing...

You are able to feel:

powerful
empowered
whole
useful
interesting
needed
necessary

[employed]

We are told our whole lives that our occupation "defines us"

And now...

When we sit at home and our children cry over a bad school day and homework is not done and you do not want to argue about whether or not she can watch Octonauts while writing the letter that is a result of her teacher handing out a "red card"

We do not
Feel
[powerful/empowered/useful/interesting/needed/necessary]
employed.

We feel.

Alone
Lonely
Sad
Verklempt
Frustrated
Useless
tired

tired

tired.