A Personal Note to (My) Mother

Ma, I have always wanted to ask you a few of these things: for quite some time, because I don’t want us to die as strangers. I don’t want us to die without not knowing each other that well, and I also want to assure this world and these people that there is nothing wrong in knowing these things which are human. Of being humane.

Ma, have you been loved? If so, how was it Ma? Of being loved? Was it like being a plant watered, a bud blossoming in the rain Ma? Ma, did you love someone? If so, how’s it being in love Ma? Was it being like watching the world for the very first time Ma? Was it like finding the first sound and the first word that a child utters Ma? Was it like magic Ma, of having being loved or being in love Ma?

Ma, do you have any secrets? Secrets of a sacred heart? The secrets of a bleeding heart (like I do)? Ma, how’s it being wounded? How’s it being hurt? How’s it being used by someone and discarded like a product? Ma, tell me how’s it being treated like a product?

Have you eaten well Ma? At least for a few days in your life? Are you nourished well Ma, inside out? How does it feel Ma, being malnourished? How does it feel Ma, not to have enough money even to buy sanitary napkins? How does it feel to stretch your hand in guilt to ask for money that you have earned from your job even for your basic necessities?

Ma, how’s your sexual life? Have you passionately made love to someone Ma? Has someone made love to you so tenderly that you had to cry Ma? Or how does it feel to be used as a sex toy or a sleeping pill sometimes Ma? Or most of the times Ma? How does it feel when you were forced to fake an orgasm Ma?

Ma, did you lie? About yourself? How does it feel when you’re forced to lie so as to evade an interrogation? Of barrage of questions when you were late to home Ma? Ma, how does it feel to be treated as a criminal? How does it feel to be treated with suspicion Ma?

Ma, how did you feel when someone hit you? How does it feel when someone insulted you and body shamed you? Ma, how does it feel to hold back tears and sob later, later into the night Ma?

O Ma, how does it feel to bear a child? How does it feel to go through those nine months? How does it feel, to bear a life in you day in and day out? Were you happy Ma? What is it to be a mother Ma? How does it feel, being a mother Ma?

Ma, how does it feel being betrayed Ma? How does it feel to live in a debt-ridden life? How does it feel to live knowing that something somewhere went wrong and things wouldn’t be the same again Ma? How does it feel to live in humiliation? Humiliation of love mama? Love as humiliation Ma?

How does it feel to go through all those years of middle age and approach menopause Ma? How does it feel for you? For the body? How does it feel for your heart Ma? How does it feel to see the body wither away like a tree mama?

Ma, how does it feel to step into the old age? How does it feel, to sit alone on a moonlit winter night and think of all those years gone by? Ma, how does it feel when everything seems to fail? The body, the eyesight and even that which we call as soul Ma? Mama, how does it feel to live with sleeping pills, day in and day out Ma?

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Ma, I have always wanted to ask you a few of these things: for quite some time, because I don’t want us to die as strangers. For, I don’t want us to die just as the world wants us to be! I don’t want us to die with empty hands and hearts Ma, and I don’t want to die in oblivion Ma. So, Ma

How does it feel to live like a shadow? How does it feel to live like a fading flower and a waning moon Ma? How does the lovelessness feel Ma? A lovelessness that has become a shadow, fading flower and waning moon Ma? Ma, but most of all, how does it feel to die day by day minute by minute and second by second

with a bleeding wound that is as large as life and as large as your heart Ma? Ma, my little Ma, how does it feel to die? How does it feel to live Ma? How does it feel to die Ma?

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