Category: Motherhood
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The Algorithm
How do you beat the algorithm?How do you fight a reflection that’s been distorted?Pixelated by cyber forces that convince our daughters that they’re not enough?How do you deflect the million voices that affect their choices and drown out us telling them it’s too much?My daughter tells me she’s ugly,Doesn’t hear me when I tell her…
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Resilience is a seed that will come to flower
I know I have power and I know its from my history from the freedom fighters who gifted me my liberty to the warriors and legends inside my own family I know the electric charge of legacy that fires me I draw strength from my ancestry like we’re directly connected via USB at times the…
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To My Children Not Yet Born
To my children not yet born;Goodbye.I will think of you,I will dream of you,I will miss you,I will mourn you,I will carry your silkenmemoriesin the furrows of my faceas I cry for you.Goodbye.To my children not yet born;I am sorry.I cannot be your mother,I cannot rock you,I cannot kiss your bruises,I cannot read you stories,I…
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Plasters
#NaPoWriMo Day Four Today’s prompt was to write a sad poem that uses simple language to convey strong emotion. The example poem used (sort of) iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets, so I too have incorporated those styles (sort of!) Also the topic I chose for today’s poem, knife crime, is close to my heart for…
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Hush Child
Hush child, Close your eyes, Shutter out the world and let the stillness fill your mind. Hush child, Hold my hand, Feel its warmth and strength and know the might it can withstand. Hush child, Take a breath, Let it fill your lungs and feel the lightness lift your chest. Hush child, Lean on me,…
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Little Green Fingers
With heat lapping at my nape and soil beneath my nails, I take a momentary break, to watch you hunt for snails, OK, you shouldn’t be weeding in the shoes I bought last night, But barefoot in the seedlings?! My heart dances at the sight! I love the frown of concentration as you try to…
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Questions, Questions
Did you buy me any more crumpets? Did this laundry pile somehow get bigger? Can I have chocolate for breakfast? Can you please not kick your sister? What costume shall I put on? What shall I put on for lunch? Can you be my pretend robot patient? Can you please remember we do not punch? …
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A Heart Full of Willow Blossom
I plucked catkins tenderly from a willow, To show how love captured me when you were born, I filled the sea endlessly with blonde billows; No drop unadorned, They broke the banks, wondrously swathing the land, With hundreds of heavenly starbursts of gold, For when you so helplessly searched for my hand, Your hand found…
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Cold Toast
When some things are changed, They are changed for good, Cold toast is not bread, And ash is not wood. When I looked at you, Selfishness ended, All thoughts of me were promptly suspended. When you looked at me, With innocent eyes, I knew I was changed, Completely revised. There’s nothing at all, Not one…
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Pip Talk
Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out? Why dress up in another fruit’s skin? You’re an apple; of that there’s no doubt. Your uniqueness is to be embraced, Differences make this world grand, If all fruits had the very same taste, Life would be terribly bland.…
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Musings of a Crummy Mummy
Has this top shrunk? Or am I getting fatter? (We both know the answer, but what does it matter?) My children have toys and food and clothes, So who cares if my jeans are all covered in holes? And yes my hair’s messy, What’s a brush? I forget… At least the stray birds will have…
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The Trade
What would I trade for all the joys of raising girls, of raising boys? For all the sleepless nights and such? For all the pain (there has been so much)? For all the hugs and laughs and fun? For the times I’ve all but given up? For the times I’ve dreamed the ‘what could be?’…
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Ode to the Sick Mother
Your head is pounding, Your muscles; they ache, You’re hot and you’re flustered, You’re in need of a break, You’ve got sick in your hair, You’re covered in snot, You’re eyes are all puffy, You’re sweating – a lot, You have a mountain of laundry, An overflowing sink, The kids all want dinner; You just…
Serena Malcolm 