Mama now.
for my children.
What it's like to be your mama.
Your eyes will see the derailing of assumptions.
Your hands will hold the crumble of the old matrix.
I do not have any authority to lean into. I have empty pockets where parents
used to advise their children. I do not have any maps, myths, or mother wisdom
for you. I can fix your breakfast, but not the culture. And when you ask how to
be a good person, I cannot lie to you.
Everything you touch in a day is in some way bloodied.
You have been born into an edgeless violence.
But I will not judge or measure you against a bygone metric. I'm here too,
ready to learn with you, unsure how to be or who to be.
I can only read fragments of your worry as the future is a horizon of confusion.
I cannot protect you and yet it is my only job.
Aching as I witnessed from this side of
the hourglass other generations of parents knew the outlines.
school, career, family and retirement.
But your life will be another shape entirely forming in the fractures.
And when you say you need a goal, I offer you an expired ticket.
Superficial memes roll off the tongue right into your bullshit detector.
Success in the existing system is not going to do you much good.
Your integrity is your rage and I will nourish it.
Your dignity is your curiosity and I am tiny beside it.
Your courage is your pain and I will sing to it with you.
We will riot together. We will notice the nuance of small
graces in the day. We will wash the grit of loss for each other.
I am your mama and your future is the story of a storm.
I am your cabin, your boots, your ruck sack.