The Journey of Mother 🌹

They say it takes nine months for a baby to grow within the womb and nine months for a Mother to grow after that; to gestate a new shape as she rises like a phoenix out of the ashes of her former self.

During pregnancy, cells from the Mother and baby are exchanged in a genetic dance, intermingling and swirling, so that they are altered by one another long before they meet.

Which means my daughter continues to inhabit my body long after she was born. I literally carry her in my heart as I emerge as a reincarnation of who I was.

Sometimes I feel like a foreigner in my own body, getting lost, finding my way by tracing my fingertips across the map of my unchartered skin.

I know I have survived something powerful, primitive and primal. I wear my battle scars proudly like badges of honour.

I begin to march to the beat of my own drum, a rhythm I’ve never heard before that echoes out loudly across the night, announcing my becoming 🌹

~ ~ ~

I wrote this poem when I was pregnant with Delilah ~ my first taste of the unravelling process that continues as I traverse the journey of Mother..

The more I let go of who

I thought I needed to be

The closer I get to me.

As I gently unravel the threads

Of my carefully woven identity

I see my true self shining

like a full moon illuminating

an ink black sky, for

she has been summoning my

existence for eternity.

I want to welcome her;

sweep the floors,

brush my hair,

wipe down the windows of my soul

in preparation for her arrival.

but instead I look around

and smile at the mess

and the broken bones

of the house I have built

because none of it matters

and yet, everything is sacred;

the unhealed wounds,

the overgrown garden

and the swollen womb,

All brimming with life

And beauty.

And I hear the small, still voice that

is both mine and Gods

whisper: “love is all that remains

when all else falls away, so

Let it go

Let it go

Let it go

and come home”