One day, I’ll write about my mother.

Mama. Circa, 1996.

One day, I’ll write about my mother.

She never had flowers in her hair.

But she wore wide-rimmed glasses and this red lipstick

that danced on the borders of chic and scandalous.

One day, I’ll write about my mother.

I’ll tell you about her head full of dreams

And her heart full of love

Of the forgotten memories

That somehow live on in her laugh

And the music that echoes from her soul

Of her black Cortina shoes

And those yellow brick roads

taken by a teenage girl

who believed she could rule the world.

One day, I’ll write about my mother.

I’ll tell you how she loved the man of her dreams and the dreams of her man

and how she held on to his words of promise.

I’ll tell you of her wide-legged pantalons

and the freedom they afforded

I’ll tell you of her quiet humor

And the jokes she reserved just for me.

One day, I’ll write about my mother.

Of the pain she learnt so well to mask

about how she built an edifice of caution upon her pain

And how she learned to dance on shards of glass.

I’m not sure about the stories that will make the cut

Or the cuts that will be made into stories

If I will tell you her eyes were brown

And they shone when she laughed

I do not know if I will remember the best parts

Or if the parts I’ve tried to forget

will burst through the surface and beg to be written

But one day, I know,

I’ll write about my mother.