All The Imperfect Lovely Things My Mama Is
A dedication to Mama..
The blue kettle starts to whistle as she zips through our small kitchen like a love missile.
Sweat dripping from her forehead, one hand on the wok, another with a spatula.
With every mosquito bite in this horrendous humid air and countless mis-cut fingers scare,
with every bad rice and neglected sacrifice,
and with each accidental splatter of hot oil skin assault or accidental spill of salt, that’s when I understand who my mama is.
I would run as soon as that school bell rings, knowing that you, out all distracting things, are waiting for me with your smile and invisible wings.
So ready to embrace me with whatever shit I went through or however blue or black my heart subdue, mama never leaves.
Her four-foot-eleven stature never fails to be the show-catcher even in the most crowded circus.
Perhaps it’s her humongous laughter revealing the gum of her teeth that is her superpower, though she would always be ashamed of it after.
Or perhaps it’s the fact that she couldn’t hold her pee when she uncontrollably couldn’t stop laughing, is the most endearing quality of her being.
Or maybe when she is blushing so red highlighting her two ping-pong cheeks like a boiled crab.
That’s my mama.
She would force me to learn the piano, no matter how many times I screamed “no more piano!”
She would always be ready to welcome Papa in front of the door, with perfectly timed warm dinner on the table for four.
She would break down and question life, pacing through strife, yet every time she would thrive.
She would put fat meaty chicken thighs on my plate and grab the thin boney definitely questionable neck piece on hers, she ate.
She would swallow the so-called bitter pills every time her voice is killed.
And she would stand in the kitchen the entire day, to make me stay for some days, yet I still find ways to betray.
We don’t say I love you enough, just like any other Asian sons and daughters out there.
Yet through virtual hugs from 8658 miles away, technical issues-infested video calls, and passive-aggressive texts, I feel her love like a velvet glove protecting me from the evils of the world.
I use her fragile yet unbreakable sensitivity as a sturdy shield every day I go to the battlefield.
And I embrace her sacrifice to pick myself back up every time I break due to an imperfect splice.
My mama is a warrior, and I would have vanished a long time ago if it’s not because of her,
because of all the imperfect lovely things my mama is.
© Joshua Theodorus Kurnia 2021
