An Homage to a Mother

Go back in time and ask yourself, do you like what you see?

Are you the same person as you were back then?

Have you evolved into a different version?

One dark and silent night, “The Morning” by The Weeknd playing in the background

Serenity and calmness felt all around an empty world for just two seconds

Feeling like the only thing existing for those two seconds

The past, the present, and the future nowhere to be seen

The zombies had retreated back into their twelve inch screen home

The night was dark and ambient, made for this moment specifically

If I could, I would choose to walk alone in this world, for just a moment.

Years passed and the song doesn’t mean the same anymore

It was layered with memory after memory, slowly fading away

Ten years ago, I was a child, I am a child, we are all children

Humanity created adulthood to repress the human race from being curious

Putting empty and blind expectations on ourselves that don’t exist, that we created

Trying to achieve a world created by the Roman Catholics, the Christians, the Buddhists, the politicians and the religious men

When I was young, I questioned everything, in a different language foreign to me now.

Ten years later and the song isn’t the same anymore

Today, it’s an eleven minute tune by a band referencing the invisible war on drugs

Maybe they are defining that era, all flower children as its outcome

“Thinking of a Place”

It’s peaceful, it’s brilliant, like the “The Morning” growing into its adult version

It is as if these are all checkpoints of a life made into a story

But who is pulling the strings?

Trying so desperately to find someone to hold the chords because it feels suffocating to do it yourself.

When people bring up their mothers, they always give these matter of fact statements

Your mother is your best friend, the most loyal one you’ll have

Your protector, your confidant, if all else fails, at least you have her

Do they realize the strength of such statements,

The hidden fallacy of what they say, feeling like the lucky few who experienced something normal

Are they lucky?

What if your mother likes to poison your drinks for sympathy?

What if she poisons you with trauma that is invisible and way more potent than rat poison or arsenic?

Sometimes in life, the lucky ones become the unfortunate ones.

Women are so beautiful and strong, even when they are flawed

Especially when they are flawed

I once knew a woman who was absent, careless, young, and naive

She was sad about the life she wanted, and while she did everything to try to attain it, she didn’t realize the damage she was leaving behind

Choices have consequences.

I once knew a woman who was angry, full of rage

She was mad about a life that didn’t turn out the way she wanted, or maybe it did and that’s why she’s angry

Choices have consequences.

The disappointment and lack of choices in their lives running through my blood trying to take control of my own.

Living in a dream where your outcome has already been sealed before you ever had a say in it.

Motherhood is a lot more complicated than the simple black and white perception this misogynistic culture has created

Leave your child, you’re a bad mother

Scream at your child, you’re a bad mother

Hit your child, you’re a bad mother

Your child has no manners, you’re a bad mother

And if you dare utter the words of discontent for not wanting that child in the first place, oh you’re the worst of them all

But what if these decisions helped the track of their children for the better

What if their kids turned out to be kind, gentle, caring, self-aware people

A rare form of a human in today’s standard

It’s sad to think that the imperfect woman label was imposed on them before they could even fight or defend themselves.

The year Selena died, things could have turned out differently

As one life tragically ended, another tragic life began

The choices my mother had where set for woman of color, Latinas specifically

If things had turned out differently

Would I be so desperate to please my own mother that I would forget to find an identity for myself?

You sit in front of a mirror, looking at your younger self

Telling him all the things he wanted to hear at that age, making up for lost time

The narrative of one’s life should not be defined by a mother’s meaning in it.

Sometimes you don’t get the chocolate chip pancakes in the morning

Or the flowers on Mother’s Day

Or the famous “best mother of the world” Instagram post that floods the screens of many on the second Sunday of May

But sometimes your mother gives you a better gift

The ability to be independent and create your own identity

Sometimes your mother lets you run free in a world where many expectations chain you down to a troubling present

Sometimes your mother lets you run free to experience the world in the most authentic way possible

For all the moments that were robbed from you

Maybe this is the best thing she could’ve done for you, better than anything else you could’ve had

And it all worked out in her favor, to be a good mother.

We ask to be understood without understanding

We ask to be respected without respecting

We asked to be loved without knowing how to love

We asked to not be judged, all while judging.

My mother shaped me, she made me who I am today, they all do

While you negate any place of importance to her, as you age, she holds all the importance

Your mother is the reason why you watch the things you watch

Feel the things you feel

Do the things you do

You feel so lonely because you didn’t have the “perfect mother”

But what if that’s an illusion people created to feel good about their matriarch

What if you didn’t need that to tell the story that ultimately is your own?

I loved the flawed man that I have become,

And I thank her for that.