I know not how to be an individual,
although biologically, yes, I am my own person.
But still, biologically, I am to form new flesh and blood with no prior instructions.
How to craft a cerulean personality that was to sprout from my own mental illness
from failures and pathetic attempts of selfishness.

I know not how to be an individual,
to be hand-in-hand: womanly and selfish.
My weakness as a homemaker is the chokehold outsiders have over my self-care.
No matter the path of my future, I was meant to have a bawdy soul to care for,
to carry my face and sapphire blood into a future where I may no longer exist.
To clothe and to raise them as my own.

To be a woman is to reproduce, is to prioritize others, is to look in the mirror, and not recognize yourself. I was always meant to be a mother.

Trapped, or gifted, for more than the standard 18 years,
I empty my energy into my creation—
I fight for individualism, yet fold in the face of my child.

I love this spirit unconditionally.
It’s neither their fault nor mine for our existences intertwining.
I will work day and night, night and day
to keep them safe and loved
because although I know not how to be an individual,
I perch myself on a seat of mushy care
and prioritize others as if it were my uninvited destiny.

I accept this feat with sulking arms,
an arguably negative quality of putting everyone above me
led to the only thing left to do:
I woke up.
     Lonely.
          My child has seeped away along with my dreams.
               Inexplicable loss in her place.
 

I’ve never had a child or scare.
Frankly, I’m only 17 and experiencing my first real relationship.
Even then, even without ever knowing what responsibilities of being a mother entail—
I wake up with a cold sweat, blue in the face, tongue tucked down my throat
with no memory of the 18 years I raised her, except her face;
tattooed in the folds of my brain
I Named her,
Clothed her,
Fed her,
Bathed her,
and still, just after 8 hours, she didn’t exist.
The hole left behind a smear of indigo in my gut that hadn’t existed prior to my shut-eye.
And still, 18 years had passed in my head
and I wished for nothing more
than to exchange my youth for the chance of living out hers.

To be a woman is to reproduce, is to prioritize others, is to look in the mirror, and not recognize
yourself.
Yet even after reproduction, prioritization, and declination of self-worth,
I know I’m meant to be a mother.