Mum,
I am sorry you cannot help but feel charged
whenever my name is propped in conversation
because I know you sense "sweet"'s connotations
(though not the paralinguistic of which it is spoken)
I am sorry your shoulders often sink
when people pick the shape of my mouth on your face,
like a frantic pennies for a towering debt.
you know of no man who would speak of me in length
without the words erupting into a fungal bloom
inside your misunderstood, protective head.
I am sorry of all the things I could have adopted
from living under the woman's wing, I favoured
neither grace under fire nor compassionate eyes
but the dark side of feminine sass instead.
I am sorry my life to you is a troubling plot
you only want to watch on true movies.
I am sorry at night you fall into that hard dream;
me, dancing in the dark.
I should regret every time I'm hanging up the phone,
every year spent battling the barbs veiling wisdom,
how I could not even command the pride to be resolute
in telling you who I undeniably am.
(That, simply, I will never find a cure
to my love for another man.)
Most of all, Mum, I am really sorry
for so long I believed you were bound to be the one
who would lie how my skin sparkles in the sun.
When miles apart from my own mind, you cannot see;
I have sealed my life to the fading moon.
Mother, I have too much fear in my bones -
never spoken, family has died on my lips.
I accept people must bleed, like water must flow.
And I'm so, so sorry to have summoned the last tsunami
but my soul is ready to be drowned.