It’s been a feeling that I’ve grown to feel so negatively. It started out as an overwhelming shift in perception that caused me to clench my chest and hide what my eyes were really seeing. It’s been so overwhelming at times that I can’t do anything but lay still and consider my thoughts as tiny pieces of intelligence that dance around and taunt me until my lack of grasp becomes too much to handle.

It was always this way.

Even when she wanted to influence in a way that would have a positive affect on me, she could never bear it. It’s hard to understand something so devastating while it’s coming from someone who’s meant to protect you from everything. The feeling I would get from endless tries and delicious attempts to achieve what others around me were being given from the one who never even understood what they were meant to be in the first place.

So close, to falling into habit
And giving just to have it

Maybe I’m selfish. Maybe I needed to shift the priorities I consumed myself in to something worth more than myself. Maybe she was showing me that. Containing my hope was always a struggle. No matter the consequences I would always hope. I could say this damaged my idealistic perception of what a human should see and feel, but in reality it’s only built a terrifying force that takes time to deliberate the irreversible penalties my actions take on others.
PHOTO CREDIT KIMAMA.

That maternal expectation has shifted to my own wanderings. Expectations in anything other than myself will undeniably end in full circle back to page one.

She gave life just to have it. While that idea will forever frame my imagery around her, it will constantly remind me to try and push and exceed every expectation I have for myself, the expectations she couldn’t even see for herself.

– Love Tabitha

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