#might delete frfr i poured by heart out

[senqv]

UNDELIVERED LETTER ( to : mama )

freestyle poetry / prose

a/n : might delete later i cried like 3 times writing this el o el

if i were a child again, i would be lying on the bed frame of my grandmother’s 8-levelled apartment in china. an old, wooden thing, my body separated by nothing but a thin sheet, small bones of my frame aching. for some reason, there was no mattress in that room.

a singular fan whirls loudly above, the white planes coated in speckles of dust and rusted metal.

the air is humid from the afterthought of rain, and the fabric chequered with knockoff cartoons sticks to my skin.

still, i sleep comfortably, dreaming of rainbow-frosted cakes and dozing kittens.

still, i will complain about it the next day, and my parents will relent and nestle the small body of a child between the two of them in the hotel room.

if i were a child again, my mother would still love me.

i see the way her face contorts at cropped t-shirts and tomboyish haircuts. how her lip curves downwards at my willingness to stuff and bundle my skin into too-tight clothes. the way she mourns the body of a child she could once carry in her arms and raise to the sky, sunlight blazing against long, dark hair.

now it’s too tall, lanky. bones jutting out awkwardly in her hold.

miserable in the new temperament, the venomous words spat at her that a child would never know the existence of yet. the skin of her hand crackles, wrinkles pinching at the joints from the chemicals in the laundry detergent, from the relentless scrubbing at a stain that will never leave. the hand reaches out towards her daughter still, and she runs, further. hair that slips through her fingers is chopped off.

she loves me still, tolerates the tantrums, buys the clothes, and pays for the haircuts.

she prefers the child.

my mother always preaches how similar i am to my father, the slope of our noses, the glimmer of dark pupils.

we both know i am more like her. the silvery laughter, the poisonous words. the ways our faces both darken at the sight of each other. or perhaps that is my wistful thinking.

which daughter does not idolise her mother?

mother. mom. māma. carve me out from your womb again. i will be the daughter you want. i will learn to speak your dialect, i will play the guzheng that you never had a chance to learn. i will be softer, gentler, prettier, intelligent but not audacious, and hold my tongue when i speak. i will wear the dresses you like, and my hair will tumble to my hips, braided by your hands. i will be everything you couldn’t, and everything you sacrificed.

i don’t fear anything else in the world.

māma, please don’t hate your daughter for growing up.