Too Girl To Comprehend

Meet my mother. She fled falling bombs in Da Nang. She fled labor strife in Gdansk. She fled the suburbs. She fled the men in her bedroom. She fled her children. She burns incense at a shrine to her parents. She sets her Dunkin Donuts coffee on her desk as her guardian angel for the day. She worships the bottle that bleaches her hair. She stands before God and marries her true love. She wears a huge coat that gets smaller with the years. She wears pajamas to the grocery store. She wears Exclamation. She  plays with spiders and snakes. She plays with men and money. She drinks vodka. She drinks fruit berry punch. She drinks bitter, black Cuban coffee. She scrubs toilets. She sells mortgage. She serves time. She raised eyebrows. She raised a family. She raised hell.

Meet the woman who taught me what it means to be a woman.