Presentation Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yYYV9rVTuFGtrYx6YOMZ2Plt-6KmzOzObwp0bxweOrs/edit#slide=id.p
Prompt: Discuss the idea(s) developed by the text creator in your chosen text about the conflict between pursuing a personal desire and choosing to conform.
Below is my Cold(ish) response to the poem we had included in our Argumentation Presentation (linked above). Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about a human’s capacity to love- specifically, the astounding amount of love a mother has for her child, even if said child is only minutes old. Sometimes I look at my own mother and I can’t help but wonder what keeps her going. Does she ever wish she could go back to a time where she didn’t have to keep giving and giving? Does she ever feel the overwhelming urge to run and never look back or worry? How can someone hold that much love- that much fear? How do I thank her; how do I apologize? My poem is a means through which I am able to understand-to some small extent- my mother’s love.
~***~***~
I’m sorry, Mama.
I’m sorry that I have taken
a part of you away from yourself,
and I am sorry that
you are so selfless
you haven’t even realized it.
Because of me,
your life has become a monotonous chain of
Eat,
Sleep,
Work
Work
Work
because even at home,
your job still holds.
With weary, loving hands you mold
the clay of our minds,
though it muddies your palms,
rebels and twists away from
the path you know rings true.
You have fed us
the fruits of your heart,
the nectar of your soul,
when our own hearts were barren
our very souls deprived of their blossoms.
You have offered us your heart of glass,
and I’m sorry that,
sometimes,
I trip and
it
shatters.
You alone have carried me,
as no one has carried me before,
as no one has carried me since.
You have watched me grow
Through your whispered supplications,
Through the torrents of tears that form your oceans of
love and selflessness.
Don’t you understand?
It hurts
when I think that you have become a shell of who you once were
because you chose to fill me instead.
It hurts
because you bled so that
I wouldn’t have to,
gave up your dreams
so I could have mine.
It hurts
when I can’t truly thank you
for all that you have done for me.
I am not the child
you deserve,
yet you love me anyways.
It hurts
because
My flesh
is your flesh
My blood
is your blood
and though Our hearts
beat
as
One
I know Your heart would gladly
falter
for the sake of
Mine.
~***~***~
Personally, I think one of the defining traits of womanhood is the selflessness of it- the extent to which we are able to love strongly and silently, and sacrifice our personal desires for the sake of those we hold dear. I found that this was a theme prevalent throughout our argumentation poem as well; the selfless love Qiu Jin held for her country-and the women that resided within it- allowed her to forsake any personal feelings she may have had towards Japan, and move forth in a bid to save her own country. Though I may joke about my mother chasing me with her shoe and her deep love for emojis and her preoccupation with me becoming a doctor, I truly cannot express the gratitude I have for her, as she bears the trials and tribulations of this world without thought for her personal desires. At the same time, I wish there was a way for her to dream again, to live outside of her life as a mother for a little while and find herself. The selflessness with which my mother and father second their own desires will never fail to fill me with awe; in a way, their ability to conform to this love of theirs frees them from themselves. I can only hope that I will one day be the kind of woman my mother is.
I hope one day I will understand what it is to love so completely.
