No One Taught the Moon How to Wait, But She Did Anyway #poetry

I. fragment / breath / time-stilled morning

You stood there—
draped in the yesterday of marigold oil and coconut shampoo,
eyes carrying that quiet ache of someone who has
given up whole seasons
just so I could taste one cloud.

I remember.
But only in the backs of my knees.
Only in the places my bones still believe
they are children,
still waiting
to be wrapped in your unwrinkled laughter.

II. she does not like to be called mother

She made chai when the world refused to wake.
Four cups. Two and a half sugars.
Even when no one was speaking.
Even when silence was the only guest that lingered.

She did not scream
when I tore the syllabus in half.
She didn’t even blink
when I said I wanted to be an astronaut at 23.

(He wants the sky, she told them.
Let him crash with open hands.)

She whispered my name into the folds of every tiffin
like it was a sacred verse.
You wouldn’t know.
You wouldn’t see it in the steam.
But it was there. Folded between rotis and stubborn hope.

III. you were not born to be this brittle

And you—
you are reading this
like it’s a poem.
But it’s not.
It’s a storm report.
It’s a confession folded inside the corner of a napkin
your aunt used to wipe your tears
after that time you failed at
being perfect.

She looked you in the eyes and said:
"Beta, even glass has to be reheated to become crystal."
You didn’t understand then.
But now,
don’t you?

She saved every newspaper that had your name.
Even the ones where it was misprinted.

IV. then I learned to walk backwards

I began collecting
the way she said my name in dreams.
Tonal shifts.
Dialectical slippages.
On Thursdays she used a lullaby tone,
on Sundays it was all consonants and command.

She—my grandmother, yes her—
once stitched the sleeves of my torn jacket
with green thread
because, she said,
“green heals faster than white.”

Who teaches that?
Who teaches love that sneaks into thread?

V. they will say this is about a woman

They will be wrong.

This is about hands.
Hands that know
how to scrub floors and dreams without bruising either.
Hands that once held mine
when I told them I didn’t know how to be a son.
Or a man.
Or anything whole.

This is about her taking me to the library
on a day the sun was rude.
And how she said,
“Books won’t fix you,
but they’ll teach you the art of erosion.”
What kind of miracle is that?

VI. you who want to run from softness

Sit down.

I want to tell you how she
let go of her gold bangles
to buy my university form.
I didn’t know.
Found out years later.
Still can’t look at gold
without tasting guilt.

She said,
“What is jewelry, if not a future with bad taste?”
And laughed like thunder.

You don't know thunder till you’ve heard it from a woman
who’s lived through five cyclones
and raised three generations
on rice, refusal, and realism.

VII. he writes about her now, years later

The son writes about her in lowercase
because uppercase feels like lying.
He cannot write “MOTHER.”
It doesn’t breathe right.

He writes about how she
planted coriander not because they liked it,
but because it reminded her of her own mother
who once told her that green things
make you kinder.

He writes about the rain
and how she never carried umbrellas
but always carried a spare towel.
Prepared for soaking,
but not for hiding.

VIII. you are still here, reading this

Maybe you too have a cupboard
full of forgotten softness.
A sibling. A cousin. A matriarch.
Someone who once told you—
in a kitchen or a quiet car ride—
that the world will try to make you angry,
but your job is to carry grace
like a spoon of hot milk in a trembling hand.

Maybe they folded your heartbreak
into a joke,
a song,
a warm bowl of dal.

Maybe they saved you
from the you
you were becoming.

IX. now the rat in the cupboard chews memory

It returns.
Not the rat.
But the moment you screamed at her
for forgetting your birthday.
You didn’t know she had a migraine.
You didn’t know she cried alone
in the laundry room.

But still—
that night she folded your blanket
and left a toffee on your table.

What kind of universe is this?
Where forgiveness comes
wrapped in small, quiet sweetness
and not
in grand apologies?

X. this is how she stays

Not in urns or photographs.

But in the way I correct someone’s spelling gently.
In the way I turn off lights in empty rooms.
In the way I keep one plate aside
just in case someone is late to dinner.

She lives
in every tiny decision
that smells of consideration
and quiet rescue.

#Poetry #FamilyLove #HealingThroughWords #MatriarchMagic #MotherhoodMoments #GenerationalWisdom