Charpai

WORDS BY ARSHMAH JAMAL

i crave a mother’s love. so tender so kind.

i crave a mother’s love. to be held to be fed.

i crave a mother’s love the warm kisses the comfort of home.

i crave your love mum.

CONTENT WARNING: EMOTIONAL TRAUMA

I. Confusion

Mother lived in front of a graveyard in Pakistan. Whenever we drove down the dusty road that led to Mother’s Childhood, I would smell decay. Thick, milky smoke billowing from over the wall. A stark contrast from the greenery and life of her own upbringing.

Whenever we visited Mother’s Childhood, my emotions would threaten to tumble out of my eightyear-old self. It was always too big, too overwhelming. It made me sick for days.

One sticky night I stood at the end of my mother’s charpai. Cicadas were singing woefully in the graveyard, the hum of electricity buzzed in and out of my ear. I swear, I heard soil being patted.

Snot dripped in pools down my grandmother’s shirt, hanging off my shuddering frame. Violent hiccups shook my ribcage. Vomit perched in my oesophagus, burning like acid in my throat. I woke my mother by shaking her gently. I did not want to get yelled at. I did not want her to be angry with me.

Mother woke with a start, the white of her eyes glowing in the cramped dark.

“What?”

I couldn’t speak. Gasps of incoherency collapsed over my lips. No matter how hard

I tried to form sentences, I couldn’t speak.

“What do you want?” Mother demanded.

The harsh bass of her voice woke my grandmother with a start. She hurriedly stood from her bed and started to examine me. The room began to ebb away from me.

Mother’s sharp eyes stared at me as grandmother’s hands stroked my hair, “What the fuck do you want? Go back to sleep!”

The room started growing, trying to contain Mother’s anger.

My grandmother tutted at Mother as she tried to lead me to her bed. Maybe her warmth could substitute the mother’s love that I desperately ached for in that moment. Maybe, if I let my weak body succumb, it would appease Mother and make her love me more.

But the universe wanted war.

Grandmother’s palm stroked my spine. Immediately, I threw up. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop. I’m sorry. It wouldn’t stop. I’m sorry. I heard sobbing and perhaps, in my delusion, I screamed as well. Moments where I stopped to heave in the muggy air were paired with Mother’s most vile swears. The graveyard was silent.

My memory fails me, but I am sure that Mother yelled at me to clean and pushed my little hands away when I reached out. I think that’s why I would get sick whenever I visited Mother’s Childhood. She forgot to mother me because she was too… young. She had me but I did not have her.

My memory fails to piece together the aftermath. Perhaps for my own sanity. Perhaps to allow Mother’s ship to dock my sea of love. Mother pinched my immature heart, and it still strains every time I take a breath. And now when I wake, it is truly painful.

When I think of my mother I think of her holding a cleaver in my kitchen my kitchen is a heart, beating and pumping and loving but mother is constantly

Stabbing Stabbing Stabbing Stabbing Stabbing Stabbing Stabbing…

I sit at the table waiting, yearning for her to sit on my chair but I have realised she will sit at her own table with blood on her face and my heart choking in her hands and my lungs gasping for air and she will never sit at mine not mine never mine never mine never mind.

I am your daughter of sin of shame of hate of pure rage that you can never love but I will always love and yearn this is not a joke. mother eat me and give birth to me again this time i will make you proud.

II. Resentment

When I was fifteen, we lived in front of a graveyard. The graveyard didn’t house people but decayed dreams, lost hope, and broken promises.

“I’m going to therapy.”

“What do you mean therapy?” Mother whipped her head to me and seethed, “you don’t need it.”

Mother continued to fold her clothes around me, imprisoning me on her charpai. I stared at her apprehensively. How do I justify that need when she is questioning me?

“I need it,” I said, meekly.

Mother laughed. She laughed a boisterous laugh that shook the charpai and reverberated through my bones and bounced around in my head.

“If you need therapy, I need those mental hospitals.”

Maybe she does. Maybe if she had taken care of herself, I wouldn’t need it too. Maybe we would’ve loved each other and I would not feel this resentment. This same resentment sags my skin, greys my hair, aches my muscles. the rent. Do you know how many people would kill to be where you are? You have a roof; you have parents that love you and talk to you and support you—”

When I look in the mirror, I see my mother. I see my mother’s eyes, cheeks, nose, when she was my age. I see my mother’s dreams and aspirations floating around her.

I see my mother’s lover adoring her, and she is childless. It was the happiest I have ever seen her.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARY MORRISH

Mother continues, “I think that’s why I wanted you to

“So I can carry your Mother shrugs. Whenever Mother speaks about her past, I want to scream. Not out of anger but out of guilt. Mother was great at studying and, with her grades, could’ve quickly become the best doctor in Pakistan. She could’ve been prosperous and come to Australia on her own terms. Maybe she would’ve met a better man and had better kids.

If I had the option to choose between my happiness and Mother’s, I would always choose hers. Maybe then she would’ve grown up surrounded by love. In turn, she would’ve raised her blood was this one scene where she was a famous actress, and was really successful but she wasn’t married or had children like her reality actually was.”

“How’s therapy?” Mother asks, breaking my thoughts. I nod my head because it has been going well. I’m proud of how far I’ve come.

I look at Mother, who is still lying beside my legs, “Would you choose to go into this universe?”

Mother rolls her eyes and waves the question. I nudge her head to make her answer.

“Who wouldn’t? You have money, and I won’t have a daughter like you,” she jokes. I laugh with her and shake my head.

“I don’t think I would, though. I wouldn’t have had you, and I think you’re the best thing that has ever happened,” Mother says. “I believe I am alive because of you.”

“Would you choose to have us again?”

I stare at Mother, perplexed. “Always.”