Dear Amma

Dear Amma,

i look at you sometimes

And it scares me how selfless you are.

How much you are able to sacrifice.

How much you are able to forgive.

And it scares me because you’ve set the bar so high.

But i also know i have no mind to surpass it.

Because there’s a part of me that understands that relentless joy from giving of myself.

But i also know the dearth of receiving.

i see you settle and make peace with yourself.

And i thought i could too.

But sometimes i look at you

And i’m scared with what you don’t know.

i’m scared of what i know i would do.

*Amma is mom in Tamil

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dear mother

Dear mother

why do you shun me so?

you overwhelm me with your tears.

you push me away with innumerable whispers.

you make me tremble
until i am all but lost of my senses.

Poisoned you make me when you are ill.

The hunters have come, yet have not gone;
they are too strong to merely hide.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It is we who have embittered our thirst.
Ingest all with a questioning.
Hear all with selective hesitation.

It is only when my brothers richly run away
That they became damned.
It is only when my sisters don’t give way
that they became mined.

Mother you are my Eden
that is why i strive to perfect you.

Do not forsake your mercy,
My own mother,
For we will only take what you cannot hide.

 

chocolates

chocolates,
proffering a gesture of her single kindness
with an open heart
she gives away and taunts me still

this is all she has brought
she who has made my son smile
this is may be the happiest moment of his life
is the saddest realization of mine

i do not want them all laid in a row
when have i ever walked down such a perfect path?
they must be fingered and bit and tasted and tossed
and smashed as what all sweetness has been for me

i take one and another
and pry the very ones from his little curled fist
i take and take and relish the tears which he will cry
for the mother who could not give him the chance to smile

he cries out loud in disbelief
to have his gift wrenched away
when he has given and given and given
all that was never supposed to be taken from him

my child is too a chocolate
devoured hungrily by me
fearing that this one too like all the rest of mine
will be snatched and eaten by time and tragedy

while unsuspecting hands freely offer

sweets poisoned with false hope that last until

he again will cry for a mouthful from my empty hand