I Moan Like My Mother
In the crevices of my soul, I find my mother. I find the
womyn I aspire to become. My mother is one that has struggled through nearly
every obstacle as a womyn; abuse, discrimination, sexism, pain and trauma. I am
sorry for the pain he has caused you. I am sorry for the many times your father
hit you, and I am most sorry that those hands that once caressed you, the hands of
my father, have had the power to scar you.
I moan like my mother because her
pain is mine. In the crevices of my soul, I feel her in me, because her
strength is one I have learned to embody. I look back at my childhood and remember the
way he hit us, and later asked for forgiveness. I look back at the times when
she laid her body in front of us, to protect us from him and thus took his
slaps and the bruises that were intended to be ours. The man he loves, the man
he lives for.
I moan like my mother because
just as she has taken ownership of her body, her worth and her existence, I
will take ownership of mine. Through the bruises on her body and soul, she has
enabled the healing of my own. I moan like my mother because I am a sexual
being and will never let another man dictate my own worth, just as my mother
moaned and groaned and cried to validate her own, I will do the same. I moan
like my mother because I love foolishly, but no longer foolish enough to let
another man hurt me.
