Britta B

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Ain’t is Not a Word

I am a product of pretending everything is perfect

My mother
would never let me out the house without waiting for her sweet time
to do her hair and make-up
Every day she’d make the same mistake of
letting herself think that if she ‘looked’ good
she’d feel good

Now I’m part of a cycle where
I’d rather keep a long distance relationship with the ones I love the most
‘cause I know what it’s to want to runaway every time somebody gets too close to home
and Home
Well, that’s just another number on my MY5 Favourites phone plan

I’m scared for my ma’s well-being
She’s not the balance beam I want her to be instead she’s a teeter totter of emotions
She doesn’t take her medicine
She doesn’t like to listen
“The doctors don’t know shit”

I confess,
My mommy still spoon feeds me
Disaster, you’d call it
Literature, I’d argue
She gives me every reason to write
She is the one who gave me life
and anytime I have trouble sleeping I blame it on the fact that she gave birth to me at night
Alone
She’s the only one who didn’t just dig a hole and bury me in the back of her mind
the same way my biological father did the day that he found out that one day I’d be alive…

Hey Ma,
You must be the only one who knows how much I love the moon!
We’ve seen so much darkness together

And now, right now?
all those memories of all we been through and how I was brought up seem to want to come up
the moment I’m alone in the middle of a park
For no reason, I cry,
and when I cry, I cry really hard – it’s like, embarrassing hard
So for the sake of the public eye, I try MY hardest to stop
but the more I try to stop,
the harder I cry anyway
And because I am a product of pretending everything is perfect
I tell everyone who looks at me that I’m okay
But I’m not
I’m actually really pissed off

Just the other day my Ma told me,
to “please accept the fact that when you’re not well, you avoid some things”
and I started to convince myself that she’s only avoiding me because
for the past three weeks every time I call, she just let’s it ring
and I’ve been getting more and more pissed off at how she keeps ignoring me
YOU NEVER PAY ATTENTION TO ME MOM

and I scream it, like a little drama queen
but she just whispers back,
I’m afraid to let you see me like this

And I wish with all my heart she hears me when I say
you’re not perfect Ma
You are worthy, of life
You’re the one who taught me that
ain’t it enough?

But of course, she says
Ain’t, is not a word.

Britta B. performs “Ain’t is Not a Word” (spoken word) from Paul and Jason on Vimeo.

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