Sometimes I Watch You
I see you, in the kitchen, soapy suds trailing up your fragile arms as you absent-mindedly swirl a golden sponge across the surface of your mother’s favorite china. Your eyes are unfocused, as they dance around the playground outside the window. You see the swing swaying ever so slightly in the wind, your only clue that I was ever there.
Sometimes, I find you in my bedroom, your body thrown across my mattress, your hands bunching up the dancing princesses. I watch you shudder, scream into the pillow. I see your bloodshot eyes, and the rivers of tears making way down your slopey mountain cheeks. I move to crack the window for you, because — don’t you need to breathe? You never even notice the difference between the cool nights breeze, and my gentle touch to wipe away your sorrows.
When Daddy’s not around — which seems to be quite often now — I follow you into the bathroom, try to calm your screams. You sit under the scolding hot water, hurting yourself. This is when I cry, and my tears only mingle with the water that drenches you. And though I try to block you from pain, your hands feel nothing as they reach for me.
Don’t be sad, momma.
I try to say this to you, over and over again. I try to tell you that I don’t want you to be sad. Momma, please.
Outside, you walk fast and hard. I run to keep up with you, reaching for but missing the ends of your sleeves. I want to slow you down, but you move so quickly you can’t tell the wind from my whispers. Through the flowered fields we run. You cry. With every landing of your feet, you whimper louder and sink deeper. You have to catch your breath, I think. Don’t you have to breathe? When you do finally collapse, in the tall grasses that dance around you, in the corn-colored sunflowers that smile so bright in your face. And when you finally open your eyes, gasping for air. You’ll see me. Do you see me?
The skies are painted in a million shades of blues, pinks, oranges — everything in between. The clouds above are waving at you, saying hello as they pass on by. Through your glassy tears, you see the rays of the sun, stretching out like arms to cradle the planet like a mother and her child. And then I see you smile.
I missed you so much, Momma.
“I miss you too, baby,†I hear you whisper, and the words are swept up into the winds, sailing across the fields, the skies, the mountain and oceans. And I hear them reverberate inside my very essence, because finally you see me. Finally you hear me.
I lay myself beside you in a bed of earth, and feel your arms around me, pulling me close. Remembering me. Holding me inside.
Don’t be sad, Momma, I tell you again, feeling your heart race behind the cage of your body. The body, I say, is the only difference between you and me. I tell you that I am always near, in the air you breathe, or the sun you feel. I am in the tears you shed, and the screams you yell. Even in the grass you hold now, and the skies that guard you — I am there. I am here, Momma.
Don’t be sad.
And when you begin to shed yet more tears, for a moment I am fearful that you can’t hear me anymore. That you didn’t hear a word I said. But then you smile, and laugh, and the warmth surrounds us as the words form into being.
“I feel you. I hear you, baby girl.â€