my mother, she is becoming an anxious woman. her heart has become a hummingbird, her wings fluttering furiously around. she hasn't been the same since the roof flew off during the storm and the rain started to flood the house. she now shakes along with the house when thunder strikes the ground and when the wind yells just a little too loud. i remember she never liked thunder or wind but back then, she stood as tall and as still as a mountain. now i found out that what i believed was a mountain is a volcano, and i still stand besides it as i would back then, i'm becoming the mountain she was, i'm standing not as tall but just as still. my hands don't flutter around me like butterflies as they used to. but her's do.
at night you can listen to the hummingbird she has for a heart rattle against her ribcage, it makes the rain quiet down because it wants to listen to it, to the anxious beauty living inside my mother. the clouds and the trees converse about it, the hush whispers travel into my room through the stone walls when she leaves the house. they whisper about how she cooks more and lets her hair down more. i whisper back to them that she now dances, she dances to music she would never, and she enjoys it.
the rain kisses our cheeks every night, telling us the roof flying off was a good thing, and she believes it, and i try to, and most of the time i do except when thunder strikes the ground and the wind yells a little too loud.
