i don’t know how to handle my mother’s love

there’s so much of it spilling sticking slopping

all over me        honey catching flies

 

lots of vinegar in the world. 

 

its magenta        staining        her hands

as she dyes my hands over the laundry room sink

& plays a podcast about hating ayn rand

 

manages not to hate me.

 

she puts applesauce in the pancakes i’m afraid to eat

we sit in our aseptic kitchen and pretend

i’d have breakfast        even if she wasn’t there

 

keeps me alive against the (1:5) odds.

 

fifth trip to palo alto         another hotel room with

a defunct coffee machine & too much light

seeping under the blinds        are you awake?

 

well, now i am.

 

it can’t be easy paying a couple thousand dollars

to watch your kid lose a tournament again

but she never asks for better        only my best

 

makes me want (to be) more.

 

we walk through the forest        on sunday mornings

she has us stop to breathe in sun-splattered air

& tells me things i’ll need to know in ten years

 

gives advice on people i’ve never met.

 

she reads my stories when they’re just blood on paper

talking about the characters like        real people

not figments of my imagination or maladaptive hobbies

 

knows what i’m getting at before i do.

 

she says that we’re        each other’s        people

i don’t know how to be enough for that

having a person        is a lot of responsibility