A Motherless Child

Everything around me moves slowly. As if submerged in water. All I have is my grief. All-consuming grief that swallows me whole. I sink down to the bottom of the ocean where I cannot breathe, where breath sits heavy in my chest.

And yet I keep my face a numb mask of blankness despite the raging storms inside me. All I feel is pain. But I can't dare show it.

I want my mother. I want my mother. I want my mother. Why did they take her from me? Why did they put me in this strange place where everything is so big and shiny and I'm surrounded by all these strange people who took me from my mother?

Tears flow down my throat and into my gut. I force myself to stand and find my place in the room filled with people. I take a seat on the rough carpet of the living room floor. I look up. And I hide the fact that I can't breathe. I can never breathe.

Around me they talk and they laugh and they share stories. Nobody seems to have noticed how quiet I'm being. I doubt they care. I'm a stranger to them at the end of the day. A stranger in a strange place where I don't belong. Where I can't belong without my mother.

I feel like screaming but at the same time my throat squeezes shut and I cannot make a sound. Not that anybody cares whether or not I make a sound anyways.

Five days ago I was with my momma in our little one room house. And it wasn't much but it was enough. We were together. I always had her. But now I don't.

Five days ago the men came in their black uniforms with their hard, cold eyes and they took me crying and screaming away from our little home. They put me in a big car and drove away as I screamed.

Four days ago I arrived in this big house that is too big, too shiny, too filled with things, too much. I asked them when I could see my mother again. But they didn't answer.

There are three people here. A woman with shining golden hair that comes down in waves and tries to hide the fact that her smile is too happy, too bright, too piercing. I like soft smiles full of love. A man with dark curling hair that contrasts against his light face. A girl a few years older than me. They told me they were my family now. I would be staying with them now.

I didn't want to be staying with them. I wanted my mother, I told them this but they could not hear me. It was like I was talking to a dark void. I remember screaming. I remember crying. But it was all for nothing. They didn't listen.

They gave me a place to sleep in. And it was cold there. It was lonely. It was terrifying. Back at home my mother and I slept on the same bedroll, not having space for more in our single room house. I missed her warmth beside me. And I let myself cry myself to sleep.

When I woke up the tears were gone. As if I didn't have the ability to cry anymore. But the grief stayed. It only got larger. I woke up disoriented, wondering where I was and where my mother was. But then reality set in like a blade through my throat. And I knew that it was real. All of this was real.

They gave me food to eat and it tasted like nothing, like chewing through cardboard. I felt nauseous but I forced myself to chew and swallow because my mother had told me I needed food to keep my strength up.

I asked again if I could go home. They said that this was home now and I had to learn how to live in it.

I don't want this place to be home. I want to go back to my real home with my real family. I want to be in my mother's arms. I want her to sing me to sleep softly. I want to be hungry with her, be sad with her, be hopeful with her, be happy with her.

These people will never be my family. They are kind enough, and for that I am glad. I appreciate all their kindness and all their efforts to make me feel welcome. Though I'll never admit it, they have done many things to soothe the pain and make me feel at ease.