By Rukmini Gupta
I wish to be a good mother.
Who is a good mother?
Is she born of wounds?
Does she know how to shield her child from them?
Or is she born of caresses—
And stabs needles of hate in her child?
Does she call it love?
Does she keep her child close,
Fearing the world that almost consumed her
In her youth—
To save her child from breaking?
Or does she let her child go,
So they can break, and know what pain means?
Does she suffer when her child is licking
Their bloody, salted gashes?
Or does she feel accomplished—
That her child now has another armor
Made of blood, and tears, and pain—
So much pain?
Is a mother born of wounds—
The wounds of her mother—
Who allows herself to scream,
And scream, and scream,
After so many years of enduring agony in silence?
Of pressing both her hands over her mouth,
To keep the storm in,
To keep the insanity from raging against the city,
From razing it to the ground?
Of hiding behind half-drawn lines,
Painted lashes, and maroon smiles?
Does a mother make a tourniquet
Out of her own clothes for her bleeding child?
Or does she make her own,
And ask them to learn?
Does she pamper her child,
Or does she prepare them?
Who is a good mother?