mother had an artist

mother had an artist for a kid---

though she might not have picked up on it

when she was watching him/her grow up,

in those formative years---

as she just spoke to other mothers

(like mothers do) as if all the little ones were

the same,

cut from the same mold.

 

the preoccupation with drawing, with writing,

it became apparent early on,

and the introverted behavior which accompanies

the production of poems, stories, plays, drawings &

the subsequent paintings that follow

once one acquires the appropriate materials,

they flowed as does the river &

mother still saw it fit to try to get the young one to

play soft/baseball, to join the scouts, to

do the things that all the mothers were getting their

kids to do,

as if all the little ones were the same,

cut from the same mold.

 

the teenage years brought the chaos that comes with

a body revolting upon itself,

and mother got in fight after fight

with a child who saw great things in the work s/he

had been making,

attaining the naïve vanity of a young artist,

which ironically kept him/her from slicing his/her

wrists

right up the vein,

to flow dark crimson,

a river bloody,

worse though than the river of thoughts,

the ideas, the art being made by the introverted child,

the one who felt they’d be great.

 

and when the other moms of the other kids

began to talk about the colleges that they had all been getting

into,

the mother of the young artist winced,

because she knew that no matter how much she tried to push

her child in one direction,

inevitably they would fight to get back on the road that

they felt they needed to be &

it was hard to watch them walk down the aisle of

minimum wage---

it was hard to watch them age, rolling like the proverbial stones,

gathering no moss at all,

watching friends move off with their mates to start their own little

tribes---

it was hard to see the child not be recognized as they thought they

would be.

 

the child described to mother that

needing to make their art was something like a sickness,

as if to stop would kill them,

and yet

with the going on of it all,

making them look even sicker, even more insane

as every year passed,

in the eyes of those who were locked down in security,

a full time decent paying job,

kids, a home,

etc.

 

mother had an artist for a kid &

quietly, on her own time,

she thinks that she might even regret it,

wishing all the little ones

were cut from the same mold.