| t h e • mother | portrait of a mother

I could never be like my mother.

My mother has big round brown eyes and when she smiles, the entire room lights up.
She smells of Prêt-à-Porter and though her scent will wear off, it will eternally be stuck in my heart and mind.

Her pixie shaped haircut, they way her hair reminds me of salt and pepper, how she talks in high pitched voice when she is nervous and how she scratches her back like Baloo from the Jungle Book, just to make me laugh.

My mother is fragile. Her walk is slow paced and although age is just a number, I swear that sometimes it looks as if she is wearing the weight of the world on her shoulders. She is caught between a frail body and a heavy heart and just like a child, she is sometimes afraid.

My mother loves me more than she loves herself. She was the voice of reason when I couldn't make peace with myself. When men burned holes over and over again through my little heart and when I yelled in her face that I couldn't take it anymore.

My mother is fiery and feisty and when she is angry, hell takes over. There are demons inside her and it's a constant battle. They crack her halo and smear her wings with dirt.
Often, she lets them win.

My mother is wounded. There are days when she crawls inside her safe cocoon and shuts everyone outside. All the tragedies of her long life, pierce her safe place and leave her breathless.
She collapses and crumbles before my eyes, telling me that her heart beats have no meaning anymore and those are the days I am most afraid of.

Days when I feel that I am walking on thousands of legos scattered on my floor. When my heart feels scorched as I am unable to fight her battles. When I lose balance of myself as I am desperately trying to find solutions. And all I want in this world is to know that I will wake up one day and see that her heart is finally safe.

( Picture was taken by me in London Museum )