Poems for Parents

For this blog post, I decided to share some poems about parenting, as I am feeling reflective today on the one month anniversary of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Feel free to add your thoughts or your own parenting poems in the comments!​

 Memory

Want to remember
This moment
Forever
Don’t want to forget
My girls
This age, this night
Still innocent
Loving their Mami
wholeheartedly
Without holding back
Showing me their love
I hug them tight
And ask them
“Will you always love me this much?”
And they both nod, solemnly
“I never want to grow up”, they say
​Neither do I, I think.

6/15/15

​a mother’s pain

a mother’s pain
knows no limits
it’s the pain you feel
when your sweet baby is so mad,
she gives you the silent treatment for hours on end.
it’s the sadness you feel
when your grown up girls go the movies
without you for the first time.
it’s the longing you feel when you think of
the days when they were little enough to
be scooped up in your arms, and nuzzled
and cuddled.
it’s the bittersweet memories
of the sleepless nights, tired days.
it’s the wishing and hoping
for a better future, a happy life, free of pain.
it’s the panicky feeling
you feel each day
as the future pulls your babies further and further
away from you.
and it’s the devastating, crushing, soul-sucking pain
you feel for your comadre,
who has lost her daughter forever.

7/4/14, written for my friend MT

Chasm

Sadness
Distance, unbreachable
Conversations stilted
Closeness used to be there
But it’s gone
Where there was warmth,
There is space
Where there was affection
There is a gulf, an abyss

That person
That little person
Who used to occupy every thought
Every blank space
And every corner of me
And my life
Thoughts and ideas and worries
All circling around you and me
We were a unit
Came together
Unbreakable, beautiful, elastic bond

Elastic now wearing thin
Tired from being stretched out
So many times
​Trust broken
And rebuilt
And broken again,
Heart swelling,
And shrinking,
Gasping for air,
Deep gulps of icy fresh air

12/6/16