mio figlio mistico
By Carla Cordell
They start to bubble gently but I manage to pop them each time they rise to the surface, they are beasts, ones I do not need rearing their heads right now. They should stay in the depths where they belong, where I have kept them successfully for many years now. But one is stronger than the others, he his more cunning and he rises not quickly or confidently but with gentle clawing slowly but persistently until he makes his ascent to the very top unleashing a blood curdling scream that scares my son so violently that tears flow immediately. Scolding hot and syrupy. Leaving two clear streaks down his face. I grab his little hand squeezing a little too hard. My ferocious wrath is mythical. I am Medusa and Leto in one.
Please do not judge me harshly, but if you do I will forgive you.
Where to begin. There is a boy who is here, who exists, who I brought into existence. I created him, and all at once he torments me and beguiles me. We are at war from the moment the sun skulks below the horizon inching its sweet glow over us.
He draws from my depths someone I was not aware of in such obvious form before, a rageful and furious being. Once this being has settled into actuality it is paralyzing. The boy’s ability to evoke this response is remarkable and leaves me with the eventual realisation that his power is a force that I cannot change and should not want to.
Wrenched from me in June gloom, he suffered. His wailing through those hot summer months slowly tore away at my nervous system leaving the wires raw and on constant alert.
It set the tone for his first years where the haze of hardship blinded me, restricted my ability to pour compassion and joy into this astounding little anguished person who loves as hard as his fury. His emotions are worn on the outside, there are no secrets. He is wholly present and what he feels, I feel tenfold.
How can I berate him for his journey. He finds simply being so exceptional and at times excruciating that each searing emotion is an eruption.
‘All little boys are like that’ or ‘All children are hard’, the words of friends or even passing strangers when I so much as show a glint of struggle leaves my head glued shut with a cramp in my bones.
It must be my fault, I must be weak, I must be bad.
At night he entwines, holding onto me aggressively and desperately. I am a warm and maternal raft floating in his vast ocean. His love for me is an assault but in the still depths of darkness I can surrender to him. His face a perfect heart shape, divine almond eyes closed, he rests deep, so hard to rouse, his body and mind are collapsed from his toil.
A brother was born where ease ruled, the love was equal in my heart yet one flowed gently, a shimmering stream, the sun dancing through, soft currents. While the other surged, upstream, flooding the banks and breaking through the dams I had built. Once they were compromised, collapsed I was forced to start from the beginning. Unravel myself patiently and with love and in turn attempt to unravel my beautiful child.
I would like to hang my head over the sink and wring out my thoughts, watch them drip one by one, little coloured beads each a different shade of blue or yellow depending on the day.
Five years since this small breathing creature hurtled into my life , I am only just starting my voyage. I send my heart towards the sun and wish only for patience, for myself and for my child.