I've always wondered what it's like, as a parent, to see your child grow up. They come into the world as a helpless baby and somehow, they grow into a functioning adult before your very eyes...how weird is that? Sometimes I wonder what my mom thinks when she looks at me: does she see me as I am now, or will she forever look at me as she did the first time we locked eyes as mother and daughter the day I was born? I wonder if it makes her sad knowing that I'm all grown up now. Or perhaps, she can wear a small smile every day with the knowledge that the little girl she had raised had never left.
In Her Eyes
As we both sit on that low playground bench,
which only used to seat one of us sixteen years ago,
the other one stomping around on dampened woodchips
with her stumpy little legs, occasionally falling on her
diaper-padded bottom, only to get back up
and start stomping around again with the same crescent eyes
and stupid smile she had just prior to falling,
we look at the scene set before us and watch
the memories recreate themselves
in a blanket-wrapped silence that pushes us closer
together from both ends and see that just like us,
so much has stayed the same
and so much has changed.
You ask me if I remember coming here often
when I was little and I can only nod my head, "yes,"
and continue pretending
to take in every detail of the crooked swings and
the skid-marked slides once more in order to avoid
your gaze that has shifted from the same swings and slides
and is now being directed towards me.
I wonder what you think of when you look at me.
Do you see me as I am now?
Somewhat taller with shoulders broader?
Or do you see me as I was then?
With hands smaller, a curious crawler?
Or maybe, perhaps, it is a mixture of both,
two conflicting images set on top of one another,
one shifted over to the side just an inch
so that most of it overlaps, but
a little piece of each one stays unchanged.
It's the same for me when I look at you, though.
Because to me, your cracked dishwashed hands,
and big teeth have always been there.
And so you see, when I look at you,
and you look back at me,
the same eyes you use to see me as I am now,
are the same eyes you used to see me as I was then,
and I am forever that wobbly,
sausage-legged little girl who you watched
smile, stumble, fall, and smile again.
