Motherhood by Diya Chaudhuri

I was told as a child that freckles were insects — hopeful tillers of skin
that nosed, uncomprehending, through the husk of me, beguiled by steam from a scalding
and too long shower. No small wonder I grew up to be this scab picking
welt prodder. No small feat to shorten my showers. Such is the office
of the load-bearing mother, the weight of it all squarely upon her: the bills that creep
and creep, relentless and crippling, the husband who moves through the home
like a wraith, the children born already squawking for more.

At ten, I realized the deception, overcome by the treachery of motherhood.
The digging at flesh with thumbnail and screwdriver stopped at last.
But I understand it now, finally — how the lurid fog curling off my skin
like so many storms at sea could derange the bijou minds of these black flecks,
drive them, like the howling dervish, into reckless rhapsody, transcendent and digging,
how my widening pores would spread themselves to the heat and their bodies,
inviting, how natural it would be for the writhing gnats to squirm right into me.

About the author:

Diya Chaudhuri received her B.A. from Emory University, and is currently an M.F.A. student at the University of Florida. She has been published in The Lullwater Review and anderbo.