I couldn’t live without my mother

It has been years since we first met through an ultrasound

It seems like yesterday

When I felt my mother’s hand rub on my head through her belly

Sometimes I think about if “man” were the only gender on earth

Where would I be?

It is a woman that goes through the most pain

How many men can say they have carried another human in their belly?

Nine months. Wow!

Only strength can physically equip women to bring in a new life

 

Now I think about my mother

My beautiful, strong, ambitious mother

But questions flood my thoughts

What would I do if my mother were not alive?

What if she just abandoned me because she could not do it?

Where would I be?

Would I still be as strong?

Would my eyes look at the world differently?

Who would have raised me?

 

When people said I would not accomplish anything in life,

That the only choice I had is to get pregnant and work on my feet all day,

Who would have looked me in my eyes to say

“Baby you have options. You can be anything you want”?

Would I have made straights A’s in high school?

Would I have been pushed to be the first in my family to go to college?

Would failure be an option for me?

 

If my mother did not exist, I would not know how to be ambitious.

It is in a mother’s existence that helps a little girl become a woman.

My secrets would not have a place to go and hide

A mother has something that no man can have

A mother’s intuition

My mother has the ability to communicate with her offspring better than anybody else

I would not know how to comb my precious sandy brown hair

I would not know how protective a mother’s presence is

I would not have the honor of being a daughter, who will one day become a mother, hopefully a wife, and years and years from now a grandmother

 

It is my mother’s ferocious personality leading her to never give up

In my mother’s eyes, she sees me as a reflection of herself

If my mother did not exist my soul would not be cared for

If my mother did not exist I would not be writing this poem

If my mother did not exist, I wouldn’t be afraid to die

If my mother did not exist I would not be alive