praise, pt. ii
- Jun 10, 2020
- 3 min read
by Ashley Ward
your mother sits silently in the foreground as she hears you weep your eyes out. she has made the kitchen her sanctuary, all faded floral wallpaper and chipped paneling as she boils milk and honey in a forest-green kettle. she laments the fact that she does not know a prayer for this sort of sadness nor spell to end the rains whirling about your bedroom. the dining room table with the worn pastel-yellow runner and half-eaten biscuits is as close as she can get to you. the missing bottle of bourbon in the liquor cabinet taunts her, echoing louder than your dry heaving. she will not see you, not like this.
you are a muck of misery the next room over. her concern is palpable but for once she keeps away and you are grateful. inclement and inundated, your room is awash with something honest and you cannot think of a good enough excuse as to why the floor feels more like home than her arms do, so you lay there. naked and sobbing and home.
tomorrow your mother will gather the courage to comfort you. she will knock on the door lightly and ask how you are doing, as if your going was not laid out for the world. she will inquire about the monsoon that nearly ended you last night and you will explain that it is not the rain that ruined you, but the devastation caused to your crops. you will lay there as she sprinkles peppermint oil about you, casting away a pain she does not care to understand.
your mother once told you it was a sin to love a girl, but she said nothing of the pain they left at their departure. you wonder if perhaps eve was made to love adam because she could not house a love big enough for her own kind. if perhaps love was not meant to feel like holding a universe in your chest like a time bomb, counting down the seconds until it explodes. you say nothing as your mother soothes you. “you will get over him, girl.”
but a man could never cause this much devastation. men are callous and unlawful, but you see the hell they plan on bringing with them on the horizon. men are nothing compared to this—this pain is foreign. this land has been ravaged, the storehouses have been flooded and you have been washed away. you are grasping at the memory of her breath on your neck nearly as hard as you are grasping at the bedposts attempting to pull yourself up, so your mother will not know how far you’ve fallen.
when your love left, she rang no alarm bells, gave no warning. she took all of you and let you be without yourself. yet being without her is the feeling of unbecoming. un-being. unraveling at the seams—oh, how deeply you loved her. were you not enough to deserve a love that did not end in misery? a love that does not end with you crushing glass between your fingertips, blood and alcohol and tears on your floor?
in the morning, your mother will stand beside you as you dress yourself and she will sing a hymn of praise. you will send it to her eyes. her hair. the slope of her neck. the small of her back. the kisses you peppered about her naval, the perfect fit your tongue found in the space between her breasts. you will have a conversation with the distance between your two bodies. you will thank her for the monsoon, for the devastation, for the loss of life and limb, God, country, and heart. she is gone, you are left, and you will still offer praise.
Ashley Ward is an emerging poet from the Austin, Texas area. Currently pursuing a degree in social work, she is passionate about advocating for social equity and her work often centers love and equity. You can find more of her work at www.ashleywrote.com.
