Mothers

I had my first go at blogging on Myspace, simply because I had a couple of friends there, but I discovered that I really don't like the atmosphere there, although I really can't work out how Myspace can actually have an atmosphere at all! I have decided to delete that page, but I didn't want to lose what I had written there, and I would like to keep writing occasionally. I can't work out why , but it seems that millions around the world have a similar desire to put themselves out there, so why not me?

I write poetry - but I haven't been able to write anything for two years. Reading a Myspace blog, which was a tribute to the writer's mother, triggered something in my head - but what follows isn't a sweetly loving reminiscence like hers.

I'm a mother. I love being a mother. But I also had a mother, and the hardest thing to admit is, that, despite loving her as a child can't seem to help but do, I also hated her for never showing that she loved me, for never acknowledging I was okay, or good enough. Two decades after her death, I'm still not quite over it, probably never will be. My greatest fear is that my beautiful sons, whom I love more than life, will feel the same about me.


The After-Game Debrief

Right into extra time
it was all about you.
Lying grey and motionless
you still controlled the play.

You wouldn't blow the whistle
till I had shaken hands,
acknowledged you as
Player of the Century,
and me - less than second five-eighths.

Even now, two decades on,
you still high tackle into my life
scrummaging in my head
at inopportune moments.

It's time I told you,
The Game's over.
The boot's on my foot.
Your ball's out of play.
My team's playing live.
Your team's dead and gone.
It's all over - even the shouting.

14/8/2007