poetry

Let the Moonlight Guide Me Instead. {poetry}

 

My mother used to sling me to her chest.
I was all wrapped up in down feather
and sugarcoated in cookie crumbs.

I’d travel, face pressed into her bosom
insulated, incubated, warm and safe.

You’re my little horse blinder baby,
she’d coo to me.

You see, my eyes were shut.
So I learned to survive on smells,
and the odd feeling of sunlight kaleidoscoping across my face instead.

When my legs started to twitch and my gurgles turned to thought,
she’d keep her arms firmly wrapped around my waist,
helping chart my territory,
helping me circumnavigate the room
with three thousand percent protection.

She didn’t know that at night
I’d creep out of my bed
and let the moonlight guide me instead.
You see, I could taste it
cross every inch of my body.
And if I bumped into a thing, then it was good.
It meant I was feeling the world.

Now my mother lies in bed in a nursing home —
she can’t open her eyes from the pain of things.
She says the world has all but left her behind.

So, you see,
what I do is I take her hands and help her trace the outlines of things.
I run her hands through the air so she can feel the rush of her childhood,
and the spine-pricks of her first stolen kiss,
and the day she stood on the ground and met all her womanhood with pride,
and the moment she pushed me into the world,
her little horse blinder baby
who sees everything.

***

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Brittany Connors

Brittany Connors

Brittany Connors is an actress, writer, and general life enthusiast based out of NYC. She is a lover of story, text, and all of the various expressions we find to make sense of ourselves and the world around us. She believes all expression is a celebration of this breathtaking existence.
Brittany Connors