Mama

I get back in the car. I peel off the set of gloves, And my first layer of skin I hadn’t made it two steps. I try not to notice the reddening skin they reveal And put them back on

I finally get into the store. Spinach, milk, eggs, I repeat. But my hands itch.

Back in the car The gloves come off again. The skin on my hands is gone. I try not to notice the exposed muscle and tendons 10 and 2 It’s hard to ignore.

My hands itch.

Content Warning for Suicide, Death, and Violence Mama Sydney Collo

“Good things take time.”

This is what my Nana started to say to me when I was just old enough to comprehend time. That and the meaning of long lines, and unanswered birthday wishes, and the growing number of days which seemed to follow the time I last saw my mother’s face.

“Good things take time.”

The little piece of wisdom my Nana used to bestow upon me which was typically all it took to stop me in my place when my mouth went running. Running through the expansive fields of questions which seemed to just keep growing ever since those blue bed sheets I bought with Mama when I was six.

“Good things take time.”

What Nana would say when things got too complicated, and her tongue couldn’t seem to scrape the right words out of her rotting gums, and when she would drag me by my hair outside to point my lens to the window.

A nice long shutter speed, my Nana used to tell me—cranking the dial of the camera, has the ability to reveal the things which the naked-eye is incapable of seeing on its own. The stars at one-inthe-morning, the trail lights leave from the backs of cars, and the ghost of Mama—watching over me from the confines of her bedroom.

My Nana’s irrational passion to see the things that weren’t really there was the only thing I took from the whole 16 years I lived under her blood-shot eyes.

But now only on Sundays do I see Nana—name carved into a stone pushed to the corner of the property where the whole house is in view and every afternoon at four-o’clock you can see mama drift past the floor-to-ceiling window, blemishing the east wall of her room.

Nana disappeared as fast as the shutter speed went by when I tried capturing the lilacs I still kept watered in Mama’s room. 1/200 of a second. Slow enough to linger, but fast enough where it was easy. Too fast to be captured.

The only imprint left was the one fading from my memory.

Aiming my camera at the bed now, the sun having dipped behind the trees outside, I increased the duration of my shutter. As my thumb ran the grooves of the dial, chills ran up my spine; dancing upon my skin like only my Mama’s fingers knew how to do. Air rushed my lungs, spinning around my eyes bore into the empty space behind me.

“C’mon Mama, stop playing games.” My pupils darted across the room as wandering shadows peaked around the corners of my vision. Shoulders relaxing, gaze lowering, I felt all the energy leave me in 1/1000 of a second.

“Mama,” The trembling wavelengths of my vocals struggled to break the air. “Go sit.”

Lids sagging, I watched, waited, for the blue bed sheets to sink under the weight of Mama and all that was unresolved she insisted on carrying on her shoulders.

The 16 seconds passed by slower than the Tuesday before. And even slower than the Tuesday before that. My everything gave the last of its all to those 16 seconds. The weight of 16 years of Tuesdays, 16 years of reminders of what Mama did on those blue bed sheets, 16 years of begging for her return, 16 seconds for an unrecognizable smile and a faint shadow of the woman I once knew.

What was I waiting for?

I found myself at the door when the faint click of the shutter nudged me to refocus. Slowly, so as not to disturb her, or maybe not to scare myself, I gently took hold of my camera and shifted once more toward the door.

I couldn’t help it. I turned around. Gazed into my Mama’s room. My eyes scanning the area for something to miss, for a glimpse of what I was waiting for. All I found was one last botched attempt at overwriting the blue bedsheets tattooed onto the front of my cortex. One last attempt at ridding the blade that wasn’t supposed to be there hidden under my eyelids. One last attempt at scrubbing away the scarlet life splattered against the backs of my pupils. My hand clamped onto the brassy knob, Mama’s fingers cool against my dampened skin begged me to stay.

“Let me go, Mama.”

Telling her.

Telling me.

My voice hardly perforated the surrounding air that seemed to be closing in tighter and tighter around my throat as I began shutting the 16 years away. Nana’s voice rang in my ears; Mama’s grip tightened around my wrist, around my throat; I squeezed my eyes shut, said goodbye to the lilacs and

“I’ve waited for you long enough.”

Sarah Lydia Marsh