Mother's Day

No matter what
we talk about -
travel, or
politics, or
my happiness -
You always end the conversation
with the same two sentences.

You betrayed your country, and
You do not love your mother.

And I end by saying,
It's all good, and hang up;
clenching my fists
and shaking my head.

You take to the path
of invoking guilt.
 
You say,
I hope you realize how much
I have sacrificed for you,
for both of you -
My career, my time,
my relationships.
 
Then you say,
If it wasn't for me
you'd never learn how to play the piano.
English, neither.
 
And finally,
Remember
that I bore you for nine months and
gave birth to you.
You think it's easy?
 
I never said it was easy.
But then again,
I do not understand
this relationship of repayment.
The idea
of responsibility as debt.
 
I feel no guilt
nor allegiance to a nation
dead to freedom, living each day
with a mortician's scalpel.  
No attachment at all to a piece of land,
that incinerates
and punishes deviation
from heteronormativity, that murders
worshippers of a different god.
 
It may have been my place of birth,
but it is not home,
and never will be.
A borrowed bed only,
for my organs to awaken,
and then let go, flung into the air,
landing, eventually, 
on a place
Where I could shed my petals
and finally bear fruit.
 
If love to you is
ultimately
about physical proximity,
then you are wrong,
Mother.
 
Love is a radiance,
a silent presence; invisible
yet deeply felt.

Perhaps there was
resistance, in the poetry
of my placenta. Alterations
in my philosophies, that you
had no control over.

Despite our differences,
our endless years of silence,
know that you are loved
and always remembered.