Part of Me
I always ask
Ma, do you love me?
And I know the answer:
With all my heart, my dear child
But I never ask
Ma, do you love all of me?
Because I know the answer:
No, my sweetness, I do not.
Because all of me isn’t lovely?
All of me isn’t kind?
All of me isn’t honest?
All of me isn’t-
No, my child, that is not the part I do not love.
Then what, ma?
The part of me that burns like fire
in a dry, straw land?
The part of me that is a garden
with not just flowers,
but weeds and thorns?
No, my child, that is not the part I do not love.
Then what, mother?
The part of me that has scars
like tiger stripes?
The part of me that always
seems tinted black, blue and purple?
No, that is not the part I do not love.
Then what?
The part of me that is the night sky
void of the moon and stars?
The part that has taught me that
survival comes first, living comes second?
The part that takes siege of my mind
as a skilled army would around a gated adversary city?
The part of me that yearns for a moment of silence
as one who could hear every sound the Earth mumbles?
The part of me that has been labeled an illness?
Yes, that is the part I do not love.
But mother, that’s the part that taught me how to breathe,
how to take my savaged wings and flap ‘till I fly
That’s the part that was there for me when you couldn’t be.
That’s the part that knows what I need
when my engines are caught on fire
spiraling down
and down
and as my body plummets to the ground
it knows to open its arms
and hold me
until I can absorb the landing on my own.
Daughter, that is not a part of you,
that is your enemy,
that is your weakness.
No, ma, that’s the part of me that’s magic.
Woh, this is really powerful, Rachel. I really like what you did with the italicized dialogue as the perspective shifts. I also like how you divided the poems into unequal stanza lengths - because not only do they provide emphasis, but they are sort of mimicking the division, or "parts," of the speaker - not so much as different versions of a self, but multiple components of a single self. Just as the stanzas are varied in length, the times of being (a certain component of self ) are varied.
ReplyDeleteThe conversational element that you included in italics allowed for it to be read as a dialogue which made the emotions you describe of the narrator all the more powerful. Your repetitiveness ad nauseam in your lines was an element I enjoyed. In addition, and you managed to keep the poem very tight. I found " survival comes first, living comes second?" especially strong- a real slap in the face and wake up call to whom you write for.
ReplyDeleteI found a few things very interesting and captivating in this poem. I think the conversation is interesting in that it is with the speaker's mother, but also with the speaker themselves. It's an internal monologue. The way I read it the first time was a conversation that happened or could happen and how the speaker feels about each time the question is posed. But I can also read it to be an imagined dialogue; similar to when one has imaginary arguments just to know what to say in case of a real conversation/argument. I also think it's interesting that only towards the end is the mother figure referred to as "mother" instead of "Ma". One of my favorite parts is the last 3 stanzas, including the last line. Although the speaker sees these things as unlovable, it's posed in a way that has built them up and made them appreciate things that they would not have, had these aspects not existed. The "magic" is the strength to smile at the darkness and march on.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is excellent, thank you for sharing. I can't think of anything I would change. I like the conversational element of this poem like everyone mentioned, I think the metaphors combined with the colloquial speech is really strong. I can't really think of anything I would change, except that as a minor critique, I felt the lines: "The part of me that is the night sky/void of the moon and stars?" were somewhat of an ambiguous metaphor, as in, it isn't entirely apparent what it means based upon the context of the poem, and without the poem it can mean a variety of things. I did get what you were going for so if you'd want to keep it in your poem I'd see why, but I think something more specific or even making this line slightly more specific can make it even stronger. But that's somewhat of a nitpicky critique, overall, love this poem.
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