I’ve carried my mother’s body on my back since the day I watched the weight of her rock to and fro in a box teetering on the broad shoulders of young men

Their arms flexing, ripped tendons, whites of their eyes brimming with tears, reddened by liquor

I’m tired, the fretboard of my spine warped and thinned

Bucking under the weight of the haze of her mothering

The punctuated horror of her end obliterates all sweetness as it escapes me

Ambling half-made and tattered, between its lull and chaos

A life of phantom hopes and longings for things that never were

I’ve carried my mother’s body into every room, every story, every moment of glory and its inevitable blunder

There’s no distinction between the numbing loss and the sting of recollection

The frantic pursuit of sky to wing, the strangled cries of that which used to sing

Day 1 - One hundred words for 30 days with Mesa Fama and Stephanie Penn.