Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Contest

Mother
by geetika mahajan

THirty-Second Contest
Honorable Mention

i. and when you sleep 

i can’t help but see the stubborn creases 

at the corner of your eyes. you are forever trying to erase 

the stray white hairs poking through the darker ones, 

you still refuse to dye your hair like the 

other mothers already do. instead 

you pull them out like stubborn weeds — 

they don’t belong there 

you are still young 

thirty-five and thirty-five and thirty-five 

no matter how many february twenty-eighths 

pass. 


ii. please don’t ever leave (me) 

how you 

throw yourself around as if you’re replaceable when you’re not, 

how you hurtle around 

as if you’re unbreakable when you’re not, 

how you never stop 

working 

working 

working. 


iii. i am a selfish hypocrite 

i grab your wrist to stop you 

and have to let go — 

you are thinner than i remembered 

be more careful for god’s sake. 


iv. our souls sing to different keys 

you tell me to sit with my legs closed 

i sit with my legs spread open and dare anything to happen, 

you worry about me and i wish you wouldn’t because 

i will always 

make it out okay. 


v. and the cosmos 

i was your earth you were my sun, 

so bright i thought you were perfection but you were just 

burning yourself up for me 

like i was your everything. 

i am not your everything. 


vi. on love 

sometimes love becomes worry becomes suffocation becomes i can’t breathe anymore 

please. 

i love you. 


vii. how much i cried and how much you cried 

it was 

good for us it was good for us now we are 

offbeat, 

but it is a 

good sort of offbeat like we are about to careen into better things. 

one day, 

i will return and visit and buy you a private 

jet like i promised i would. 


viii. i dreamt you died and your body was on display under the buffet table 

i woke up crying and i didn’t want to stop. 


ix. and us 

all i want is 

to be dissolved into how you smell like 

home and warmth, 

just the sound of your voice makes me cry sometimes, 

the world has worn down the planes of your face but i swear 

i won’t break. 


x. despite everything i have ever said you will always be my hero 

gather now up and press it between the pages of a book 

my palms are up and open to the sky — 

protect her, 

protect us, 

protect this.