Epitaph foR Lost Mothers

You know that feeling
when your heart rate slows a little too much
and suddenly feel like you’re falling and
can’t catch your breath- that’s what it feels like
to lose my mother.
Imagine a felon getting out in less than thirty days
and having to count the minutes until I lose my mother

to the unanswered phone calls
less visits to a home I used to call mine.
No more evenings eating Hi-Chews and watching Dallas Cowboys play on Sunday’s.
I thought losing her this time would be easier 
knowing it was coming quickly
quicker than the last two times.
Two years have already passed.
I didn’t notice the minutes getting shorter because I 
was loving my mother again.

You know the feeling
when hunger creeps up the abdomen
after not eating all day- that’s how I know
I am losing my mother. The ache
fills my intestines with rehab facility numbers,
CPS, the sheriff’s cell, and my therapist.
None of which I will ever call because
they’re all expired medicines.
Wellbutrin is supposed to help open the tightness in my chest cavity 
and tell my white knuckles it’s going to be fine. 
There is nothing ‘well’ about losing my mother again.

Watching my mother’s eyes become sunken
like footprints in the mud
and her smile fades like a melting glacier
is how I know she’s slipping from my sister.
She’s almost 9 now so I guess she’ll be fine
peering under locked bedroom doors 
and pulling out hair the same way I did 
the first time I lost my mother.
I want to swaddle her in I’m sorry’s and I’m here for you, 
but telephone lines don’t relay the same messages from here.

The felon’s dark skin covers my mother’s hand in resin
makes her stick to his glue-like voice 
staining the air with curse words and purpled I love you’s.
I promised my sister it would never be this way;
never be broken glass on the kitchen floor
empty beer cans lined up on the coffee table
forgotten hugs and empty lunchboxes
the smell of pot and sex in the bedsheets. 
But I cannot reach her from here. 
Telephone connection has disconnected and filled with 
Nothing is going on, we’re fine.

My twentieth birthday will be too late 
to blow out candles and wish for time to stop
for him not to come back
to not let my mother lose herself in lighter fluid,
because I was just starting to love my mother again.

Mariah Swartz is a soon to be graduate of the University of Montana-Western in Dillon, MT. She is seeking her bachelor's degree in early childhood education and is searching to explore the great world after graduation. She does not have much free time to spare between being a full-time student, working full-time and working on her writing again. Reading memoirs, collecting too many blankets and relaxing at the hot springs are what she does when she does find time to lounge. Mariah was the primary editor for the literary magazine Aerie Magazine, based out of Missoula, MT., which won the NCTE award for over a decade. Her passion for poetry was sparked in high school, and she never looked back. Mariah has been published in Up North Magazine, Into the Void (2019), and Adelaide, as well as receiving an honorable mention with Scholastic.