will never mend because
all little girls want their mothers.
even little girls mistaken for little boys
who hear “son” and “little man” as damnation.
we’re not loved, because if we did come out our homes would be shut, forever locked.
we dared to reach for the pinch of motherly love
and got busted lips and cries of
“No!” in every language.
I’d ask Eve how she handles being scorned for being herself
but I don’t think she’d answer my question.
how could our own too human mothers acknowledge us,
their daughters, like any daughters?
when our mothers
die, our grief will destroy us from the inside
if we daughters don’t have mothers of our own making.
mothers of our own loves and desires instead of flesh and blood.
mothers for us, by us, to each of us.
we’ll live without their love.
—Inspired by ep. 5 of season one of “Pose”: Mother’s Day
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Ghanima Emmanuelle Sol (she/her/hers/fae/faer/faers) is a second year MFA candidate in Fiction at Emerson College. Her devices are clogged with stories of independence, conflict, beauty, and the infinite possibilities in worlds only she has walked on. An offering of coffee is always welcomed. She was born in New Jersey, spent some time in Haiti (hence the accent) and somehow ended up in Massachusetts for graduate school.
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