Pink Madder
Is motherhood the ultimate automation?
I am asked to be the village.
A life giver,
like god enough to create, yet so human.
Can I become the automaton mother,
step up to her satisfied completion?
My womb was bustling with activity,
much unbeknownst to me,
this is the template.
To turn overwhelm into wine, serving the guests, turning the bottle onto myself,
calling it care.
Rearing the children tenderly, yet efficiently, what has become of me?
The children need a virtue, insert item B.
Spinning my wheel to make it work,
it never stops.
A moon rhythm I’m running on,
a drum beating into my body.
Cradling a cup, the red chalice,
a mess that spills over,
regeneration down the drain.
The process starts again.
Wash and wipe it away.
Or
What advice I dare not say?
smear it across the face of anyone
that tells you
what you’re not amounting to.
Silicon servants could never.
The stem filled red gold might
save the world. It could.
But flesh and blood woman?
We won’t let her.
Valerie Smith is an aspiring writer whose life is defined by early motherhood and a drive to transform generational trauma. After healing C-PTSD with EMDR therapy at the age of 30 and getting a late ADHD diagnosis, she resonates with the beginners state of childhood. Finding freedom in creative endeavors, she has a passion for natural living/conscious consumption and looks to nature for wisdom. Valerie lives in Metro Detroit with her spouse and two young children.