Your mother’s words appear to be
as light as the spec of dust in your eye.
Even as you stagger through life pretending
to be unaffected by the salt in your mother's love
you catch loneliness looking at you
with a quiet entitlement.
And though the spec in your eye
is an ant to a mouse,
the vision in your eyes collapse
like two mountains eroding in a desert
as you sit in the tired living room
of hers listening to her tell you
how long it took her
to give birth to you.
What is destroyed in you that your
faint fingers scurry into your pockets
instead of pointing to what is killing you?
Is it growth you seek?
Is it connection you seek?
Is it meaning you seek?
Then you must remain
still and allow the raw
spin in your gut guide you.
Your mother was only a vessel
for your wild entrance into this earth
and you must make it out
of her house alive,
the same way you did
when she gave birth to you.
Magan Magan is the author of From Grains to Gold (Vulgar Press, 2018). He was a co-editor of the anthology Growing Up African In Australia (Black Inc, 2019). Magan is currently undertaking an honours degree at The University of Melbourne looking at poetry as a roadmap towards self-healing after narcissistic abuse.