This piece was written early in 2020 in a course with the writing prompt being “War of Words.” Having raised me, my mother is an important part of who I am. This poem honors how protective she was of my siblings and I growing up.
My mother carries gunpowder on her lips
always equipped for war of words
if it means protecting the countries that she birthed
She mastered the precious art
of being all the sharp support that I ever needed
An art form that was a generational dove
passed on from my grandma
who was the sweetest knife that could ever pierce skin
The matriarchs of my family have known
how to cut and carry for as long as I remember
known how to find harmony while wielding
their woman and weapon gracefully
known how to claim scalps of the tender if deemed necessary
There has always been a quiet in me
an armor of retreat that kept me from frontline
an arsenal of silence, as I shied from battlefield
No venom to match the snap held by my mother
She carries no surrender white flag will cover casualties
But maybe they shouldn’t have lifted their tongues to begin with
An image version can be seen at https://www.instagram.com/p/CABGoZ5horc/