Mothers, Life, and Other Chores

Editorial Content Warning: This poem contains language around suicide and police brutality.

Sometimes waking up in the morning feels like a chore.

The soft earth surrounding me has always felt more appealing than

how my mother used to tuck me in at night, with a

heavy sigh, heavy heart, taking the weight off her shoulders,

and placing it onto mine.

Black women are always bearing bad news, and children

that are murdered in the street.

I feel like I am underwater.

Each breath burns and stings as the saltwater

casually drifts me away

with plastic cups, empty beer bottles,

and whatever other trash that was produced

at last night’s beach party that the

cool breeze whisked away just enough that the partygoers

missed it during cleanup.

Perhaps that is God’s heavy sigh. The destruction,

the sickness, the poverty, the emptiness.

It is him just trying to take the weight of the world

off his shoulders to create new ones.

I have too much on my plate.

I’ve been hungry on and off since I was 14.

I restrict plenty of things in my life that I need to survive.

I have been told by medical professionals that

I make terribly toxic choices.

My mother was told by a medical professional

that she couldn’t have children

and look at her now.

Two kids born, neither shot in the street—

she must be doing something right.

Mom, what would you do

if I killed myself?

I would be so angry. I sacrificed so much for you,

I do so much for you, and you would do this to me?

To me?

I’m not sure if I would even give you a funeral.

I have borne the heavy weight of being

for as long as I can remember.

(My memory, however, is spotty).

Medical professionals say it is the trauma.

So perhaps it is not the weight, but the trauma of being.

When the sound of my own breath, the tempo of my heartbeat

is no longer music enough to get me through the night.

Yet every morning I reluctantly rise,

With a heavy sigh.

Lauryn Jones is a senior English literature major and a songwriting minor. Lauryn has been writing stories for as long as she can remember and has been performing spoken word poetry since the seventh grade. If you see her around she’ll most likely be writing. If not, she’ll be stressing about her inability to write. Or she’s on Twitter or Instagram.