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Show refusing to lie down, her touch creating its own kind of language. Even at the age of eighteen when she flew with me to the mainland to take me to college, I put my head in her lap while awaiting our connecting flight in LA and went to sleep under the brush of her fingers. Sometimes at night, after the lights were out and I was in bed, she would trace letters on my back in the dark, spelling the things in this world that I loved, the beach, my parents, the plumeria tree outside my window whose blossoms were blood red. One letter at a time, while I guessed, chaining them together, waiting for the last letter, not wanting the words to end. My mother's hands, touching and holding. And me begging her not to leave until I was asleep. Or how she would come and talk with me after my father had yelled. How many times did I lay on my narrow bed, room dark, face down and in tears, overrun by my father's words, his face, the way he held his arms, the blaming, the misunderstanding, the lack of boundaries, my own words, my anger, and my adolescent selfishness. A memory, so strong I can taste its bitterness, my tongue pushing against my teeth as I write: my father on his knees, me on mine, the bed between us, you hate me, he yells, you really hate me, and I unable to respond. Then my mother comes to me, sits beside me until my crying collapses into hiccups, brushes the hair away from my face, feeds me the bread crumbs that would lead me back to my father for another evening, a morning, an entire day. You can dislike those you love, she tells me, words that both confuse and comfort, words I hold onto like I do the pillow. Perhaps I am a little closer to telling you about my mother when I recall that in 186 |