She Loves Something Fierce

My mother

she loves something fierce

so fierce

she overprotects

so much

she strangles

by accident

and I—

for years

questioned that love

loathed that protection

a reaction so visceral

it tore me apart

till

one day

understanding dawned

after the suffering

the pain

the trauma

and I—

felt compassion

for the first time

toward my mother

who

was only shown love

through overprotection

so enveloped

it strangled

and still she grew

like plants

through concrete

her personal space

limited

her dreams

restricted

and she

convinced herself that was love

while her insides screamed

Then one day she

had daughters

so she

planted them

with love that was familiar

and she restrained them

as they grew

letting the sun in

the water in

the bare essentials of survival in

but she stopped the bees

blocked the breeze

gave nothing she wasn’t given

but that does not mean

she did not love

to keep something so close

to protect so much

you’d have to love someone

so fiercely

but the problem comes when you believe

your survival lies deeply

that you end up twisting

purity like love

into suffocation

and you

affect

not just you

but also

everyone around you

Title: She Loves Something Fierce

Artist: Shifa Kapadwala

Description/caption: She Loves Something Fierce is a poem about generational trauma.

Medium: Writing