Egg and Spoon Race
A poem about my ongoing experience as a mother
Egg and Spoon Race
When you were born
Before love drowned logic
Came an overwhelming compulsion
A drive to keep you alive
Buoy you above waves
Whatever it took
Felt like an egg and spoon race
You rested precariously
Reliant on my clumsy skill
My eyes glued, hand trembling
Concentrating, balancing
Never letting go
How close I came to cracking
.
Now…
I take in your sturdiness
The boom of your voice
And I know I’m doing it
Managing
But it still feels so hard
You remain on my spoon…..just
Heavy
My arm is aching, gaze weary
But here I am
Concentrating, balancing
Never letting go
.
Others watch, get ahead
Feels like they’re wondering
Why I’m not getting faster
Why it’s not getting easier
Concentrating, balancing
But only I can hold you, guide you
Not them
The finish line still so far away
And it scares me sometimes
That I’ll never reach it….
The end
I won’t drop you.
The intensity of Half term coupled with the overwhelm of trying to find (with bugger all help) a high school for my son, mean I’m finding it difficult at the moment.
How the moments add up.
How I find myself saying it so often.
Then that makes me sad. To map mothering in that way- when other parents talk of lovely things so often.
And I see my friends, buy shit.
Painkiller my way forward.
There are nice bits.
I remind myself I’m doing my best and I guess that’s all any of us can do isn’t it?
Try. Hang in there. Keep going.
Oh I’m sorry to hear that. I hope something gets sorted soon.
Yes I fully understand you’re not interested in a covert return. Watching with interest indeed. Probably just one giant publicity stunt anyway. How can anyone trust any of these creatures nowadays? Katie Hopkins suddenly appeared back yesterday. Still waiting to see if that was real or not.