Makayla Corrigan
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My mother kept her lips caked shut
With red lipstick and hymns.

Once, there was clay beneath her tongue
When she was a vase of cracking bones and ripping flesh
Blood and sugar water.
Conceiving life in every breath
Forming vital organs with nothing more than a sigh.

She molded her language to match her world
Filling abandoned cracks
Her feet planted in fertile soil
Her voice breaking like lightning across her solemn face.

My mother is a poet.
She weaves rugs of contradiction and blankets of love with her own hands
Her own hair
Her own fears.

She taught me to wear beads of impermanence around my neck like a queen.
To keep a calloused hand and a steady gaze.
She taught me to keep my handbag full of pens, lined paper, and mace.

When I braid my hair I think of my mother
When I burst in flames I think of my mother
When I bloom, when I fall, when I crack with frost
I feel my mother’s hand on my forehead.
And I continue to bleed
To heal
To give thanks.

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Last night I dreamt of bees and my mother.
I was formless in the mud she used to create my bones 
The buzzing in my ears overwhelmed me.
I reached into my throat and pulled out fluttering chaos, ripped from the root again and again. 
Tiny wings beating against teeth and pollen running down my chin. 

Last night I dreamt she touched below my ribs, 
Stuck her thumb and forefinger into my wound.
Do you still doubt me, when I’m dark, bruised, and sticky beneath your nails?
Now that she sees I’m made of sinew and stories
Will she see my flesh as her flesh?
My blood as her blood?
Her breath in my lungs?

Last night I dreamt we both lost our hair.
Nothing to pass on, nothing to get tangled in.
We named each strand and arranged them in alphabetical order. 
We giggled like best friends.

Mom, I’ve prayed every night.
Do you see the blood blooming from my knees like shoots pushing through soil?
This is our rebirth
This is our spring awakening
For you I will surrender my life to unseen hands.