mother

Her mother never liked her much, this she was certain. She didn’t talk much to her nor she listen to her. When she was younger and didn’t quite put the concept of motherhood, she just saw her mother as some figure, a shadow in her life. Her earliest memory about her mother's lack of affection was her grandma curt words when they were having a family gathering years ago.

She remembered how beautiful her mother was, her shiny curly black hair fell perfectly on her shoulders. She wore this sleeveless flowery dress and because they had tea at the patio, every time there was a breeze, she could smell her vanilla musk perfume. She was only four but she could tell that her mother wasn’t happy.

What’s wrong with you? Can you just pick a decent dress for her?

I was busy, Ma.

Doing what? You quit your job years ago, I just don’t see any reason my only granddaughter presented in this family reunion looking like she hasn’t had shower for days!

I told you, I was busy. My mother replied coldly while grandma tried her best to strain herself.

Don’t you love her? Care about her?

What kind of question is that, Ma?

Well, do you?

She was sitting and her eyes bounced back from her mother and her grandma. There was a long silence and it seemed the longest silence in the world. She didn’t remember her mother said anything.

After years, she got used to it. She learnt to avoid her mother’s gaze, didn’t talk back when she gave her sharp comments about her hair, her body, the way she dressed and how nobody wanted to be her friends. When she was in high school, her mother’s resentment toward her became more and more obvious to the point she stopped hoping.

When she just started primary, she cried a lot. She didn’t understand why her mother was different. Why she didn’t brush her hair, picked her up in school, kissed her cheek, and held her hand when they cross the street. Soon, she thought there must be something wrong with her, and it didn’t take a long time when her confidence fell apart.

During those times, her father flooded her with books as gifts. She loved him and she knew he loved her too, but he was never around. They talked through the phone when her mother let her. Most of the time she said to him that she’s already in bed while she was standing in front of her, hoping to hear her father’s voice.

So every time her father sent her books, she devoured it like pieces of him was there too; in every page and word. There was always a villain and a hero in every story she read, her imagination ran wild. Maybe her mother was under some cursed, maybe she wasn’t her real mother, switched by an evil man, maybe she wasn’t she at all, maybe she belonged to some secret society and someday when they needed her, they’re going to summon her –for an adventure far, far away from this world.

But none of these were true, she knew it. Her mother was her birth mother, even without looking at the certificate, she knew it. She had the same curly black hair, the same thick lashes and full lips, even their voices were similar. She looked at the mirror one day and was horrified how genetics betrayed her fantasy.

She was her mother daughter.

When it was time for her to leave the house for college, she couldn’t tell who was happier; her or her mother. She chose a university as far as she could from her home, five hours by train. But she knew even if it was only one or fewer hours away, her mother wouldn’t come and visit. So, it didn’t really matter.

She packed all of her stuff; she brought some of her favourite books and realised, aside from the books, she didn’t have much. She was so relieved that the day finally came. She was stuffing her last book in her suitcase when her mother’s shadow fell on her.

She was leaning on the door frame with a cup of coffee in her hand. Said nothing just observing her as if that was the first time she saw her own daughter. She didn’t say anything back, startled at her mother’s appearance.

You are going to crack your back, carrying all that stuff.

And shortly after she said that, her mother was gone.

She looked at her bag and her close-to-empty shelves, she knew she wouldn’t crack any bones with her ridiculously small suitcase, but strangely she knew her mother was right, she was carrying all of her life in this little duffel bag.

She didn’t have any plan to return and she was ready to fly away, leaving her miserable cursed life. Leaving the cursed woman who lost the ability to be a mother, she was packing her life.

She stood up and left the room, she was looking for her mother, wanted to say something she didn’t know what. Her mother was in the kitchen, pouring herself another cup of coffee. Since her father passed away, her mother had been drinking coffee a lot, as if she was afraid of sleep.

Her mom black hair knotted into a messy bun and she could see her mother was fighting her sleepiness in a tiring battle. She looked so .. unfamiliar to her, she no longer held any resentment and disappointment toward this strange woman. She was lost all of this time, but this woman had never found her home since the beginning.

She decided that today, she would stop for wanting this woman to be her mother.

This small, sad and tired woman was a stranger to her.

 I’ll be coming home on Christmas.

The strange woman was taken aback, turned to her and frowned. She opened her to mouth to say something but stopped in mid-air. “Whatever,” she mumbled then turned her back again on her.

She left the house the next morning and she came back for Christmas.

Two strangers ate together in silence.

But now, the space between them was no longer heart breaking.

A boring one

She flicked her pencil, beating its end to her spiral notebook. Tap tap tap. She thought helplessly, if this pencil was a magic wand, three taps and this blank page is going to be filled with the words she needed.

She was stucked.

She tried to reach her coffee mug and halfway remembered a fly just landed and chose her coffee for its dying bed.  She glanced at her kitchen, five steps away from her and decided it was just too much effort. Besides, this was supposed to be easy.

She just needed one or two sentences, hopefully five or maybe a stanza for her best friend’s wedding invitation card. Instead of putting some verse from the bible or a famous love poem from a famous poet, her best friend wanted her piece on her wedding card invitation. It’s going to be printed on a gold translucent paper, with black ink, and her name underneath it.

What do you want me to write?

Well, we think there’s no one better to write about us than you, she smiled and to secure the agreement, held her hand and gave it a slight pressure, she couldn’t say no.

So here she is, tapping and tapping.

She tried to recollect her memories, what did she know about the couple? Unless that they had become couple since three years ago, she didn’t remember anything particularly interesting. They had some fights, some moments, just like any normal couple. Guiltily, she thought that the couple was a bit dull. She could laid their future before them, a vacation to the beach, a little house and couple of kids, she tweets religiously about her domestic life, he calmly accept the fact that he’s no longer allowed to spend more than a million for his hobby. Dull.

She pushed away the notebook and picked her iPad, sliding pages and felt, surprisingly, a bit depressed. She could hear her mother’s voice in her head: Nothing against you is interesting for you. 

Was that true?  Was she naturally a cynic over everything she disagrees with? She disagrees with most of what the president has been saying on public and she disagrees with overrated feminism but she doesn’t get cynical toward those subjects. But when it comes to love, something inside her is angry.

She loved once, she remembered, a fine young man with dark skin and bushy wavy hair that always seemed like a mess. He wore black rimmed glasses when he read and watched TV. He spent too much time in front of his screen, typing and typing the night away. He was always busy and he looked like he had a burden of the world on his shoulders when he worked. She couldn’t remember when she started to love him, maybe after their first meet or was it after their first kiss? But she remembered that she loved him so much she let him slipped into his own world, forgetting her, forgetting them.

On one unpredictable occasion, he told her that he loved her, so casually; she felt she was caught red-handed. Without second thought, she said I love you, too. There was nothing strange or nothing wild about love; it was just as natural as the air they breathed.

She pushed the iPad and reached for her pencil and notebook. She thought maybe thinking about him would result for something positive in this ridiculous poem writing. So she let her guards down and gave wings to her memory to fly back, further back.

She remembered the last day she saw him. It was a chilly night and rain had just started to drizzle. She remembered she was clinging to a false hope. She was hoping for a ‘no’ but she knew she would get a big ‘yes’. She could tell all the signs, but she chose to ignore it. And now the time had come. He was going to leave her. The chilly night and the rain were a perfect background to this sad love story.

Where was love when she needed it the most?

Was it true that things were easier said than done?

Was this a warning not to put hope on someone else’s existence?

She tapped the rubber end of her pencil. Tap. Tap. Tap.

She wondered though, did she still love him?

Tap.

His unruly hair.

Tap.

His fingers dancing on the keyboard.

Tap.

His I love you.

Tap.

No sparkle, no butterfly in her stomach, nothing.

She dropped the pencil and realized, she still loved him.

But now, without the element of surprise, it became kind of ironic.

She scribbled something on her blank page, paused for a moment, then continued.

After some minutes she typed it on her iPad and sent it to her best friend’s email inbox.

She received the reply just a few minutes later. Her best friend loved it and it was going to be printed tomorrow.

If you must know what kind of love poem a damaged woman wrote, here it is:

A Boring Love

To share my pain, my joy

To be there in sick and in health,

To be faithful and to be true,

If that’s not boring enough,

I have to do this until death do us part.

But if it means to watch you sleep peacefully every night,

to quarrel with you over TV programmes,

to kiss you on the head every time you look tired,

to let you sleep on my lap while I try to read today’s paper,

to smell your cologne on my clothes,

To hold your hand every time we walk side by side,

to answers your ‘how do I look’ questions every time we go out,

to cook your favourite dish (which by the way, I despise) every week,

I’ll say I do to this mundane and dull life.

As bad as it sounds,

At least I have you to share it with.

Let it be boring, because so far, I’ve known only a person that can kill my boredom.

And (surprise), it’s you.