Chocolate Chips and Raisins – Day Fourteen of NaPoWriMo 2022

“A parent’s lot is to suffer”,
You tell me as you pour in
raisins that look like
chocolate chips
in the bowl of mix
for the next batch of cookies
for your little confectionery.

I know you do not know; I know,
I’ve seen you cry
those times at night
when there were
still, a few hours left
to dawn.

You have done all
you could, to raise me,
to be a decent human being,
body and soul,
but sometimes
the worries of
doing it all alone
felt too overwhelming,
even for you,
when the only noise,
that was there,
was inside your head,
a child to raise all alone
on a foreign land,
with nobody to help.

You, my brave gutsy mother,
who has faced
way more rejections than
a normal college applicant
knocking at all the ivy doors,
are nothing less than
the god that you worship
everyday standing
on your tired toes.

I, mother, have seen you
for who you are
and not what they say you are,
I know, even though
you do not say it at all,
Even though,
the only times you
let out your pain
is when you’re too tired
after a towering day,
sitting across from me
as I eat your handmade
oatmeal-raisin cookie,
while you burn one cigarette
after another,
to breathe,
sharing glimpses
of who you were
through the stories
that you tell me
so that later that night
I could dream
of a foreign land,
the one where
you were once
born and raised.

I know, even though
I never tell you in words,
that you are not
just a picture to look at
and move past
but a story to be
read and
a story to be told.

Written by Namrata Gupta for MTTN

Featured Artwork by Nikita Baldewa for MTTN