By RoJ
When I was small
You were home without a word
Life was you
And you were life
When I was less small
My lips would call you Mummy
A word manufactured
A thousand times a day
When I was small-ish
You must have held me
when I cried
Gazed into my eyes as if
Each time was the first
Didn’t you?
When I was medium
I stopped calling you Mummy
The word caught in my throat
And could not be freed
When I was big-ish
I escaped you in my mind
Slipped away without choice
To make fantasy my family
“Mum” became alien
Tasting only of resentment
Disgust, loneliness
as it tumbled from my mouth
When I was big
I began to call you Mother
For that is what you are
So
Did I grow out of you
Or
Did you grow out of me
Did this love have a beginning
Or did it never even start
Because there’s a hole deep in my heart
Where you should firmly be
But that hole deep in you
I’m not sure it’s the shape of me