good daughter

i had to come close to feel how foreign we have become to each other

or have we always been estranged? you say you don't remember 

what took place when my body split from yours, cut off and isolated

for one month. you visited everyday during the times you were given permission 

by men and women in white coats. and papers. and walls.

walls do not permit touch. a hand. your fingers. your breast. 

later on you say how these trivial questions do not appeal to you, meaning - 

birth is a trivial act and one must be weak 

to hover too long on its experience, then 

the story it leaves behind.

there is shame in this and i am the shame 

you will not name out loud to yourself, to me, let alone anyone else. 

am i a secret you keep in your breast?

i would have been one year old to myself thirty years ago now. 

i had to learn to nurture myself without your tender body as home.

i still haven't learned.

instead, i burrow deep inside the bodies of women i love,

women with whom i make love

for sustenance.  

sitting across from you on the bed - 

you like a queen on your throne - cold,

distant, afraid. i came to ask you if it is OK that sometimes 

i, too can be cold, distant, afraid. 

like mother like daughter. 

not good enough. 

never good enough.

never good.

or enough.

you had to learn to nurture yourself without her tender body.

you swallowed shame and guilt like any good daughter would.

and did it make you any more woman?

you didn't understand. love 

is a duty we must perform to stay alive, perhaps.

but perhaps, to die is easier.

you didn't understand how i can be so cold,

distant and afraid. while i wanted to reach my hand

toward you, lay your head down on my bosom,

brush the hair from your face, place

my fingers over your eyelids to close,

sing you a song,

watch you crumble,

dissolve,

turn to water - a place 

where we can both breathe again.