tiger.

you always told me that
i was a fast runner,
i came out of your womb         sprinting.

you, my fierce tiger mother, with your rough, hardworking hands,
you take those sharpened claws out of empty pockets
to knock me down when you don't realize that i've already fallen,
because eighteen years of growing
gave me eighteen years of growing pains.

in the sweetest memories i have of you,
your back is turned away from me.
you butcher bloodred tomatoes,
while singing a lovely song
of fantasies,
of a storybook mother
who loves her child more than
anyone else does.

back when i believed you,
i let you give me
a bruised childhood
because of scarred test booklets,
a broken heart
because of weakened knees.
now that i don't believe you,
i realize, eighteen years too late,
that i have to be my own mother.

you never told me that
i was a slow thinker,
i should have come out of your womb         sprinting
away from you.