Soggy

I did not carry you

for nine months

to one day stand trembling

in my own kitchen

afraid of your temper.

That is the sentence

no mother rehearses.

Because before the slammed words,

before the cigarette ash by the doorway,

before girls and chaos

and plates left fossilised in the sink,

there was you.

Tiny socks on radiators.

Cartoons before school.

A feverish forehead against my neck.

Your small hand wrapped around one finger

like I was the safest thing

in the world.

And maybe that is the cruelty of motherhood.

The child never fully leaves your eyes,

even when the man arrives carrying storms.

I know you are hurting.

I know the world feels too loud

inside your head sometimes.

I know love has made you reckless,

defensive,

desperate to prove yourself grown.

But this house has become a battlefield

where I apologise for existing

under a roof I hold together.

And somewhere between

the rent,

the lifts,

the food,

the rescuing,

the forgiving,

I disappeared.

People will say,

“He’s only young.”

And they are right.

But I am somebody too.

A mother, yes,

but also a woman

with nerves worn thin as old wires,

trying to survive her own life

without being shouted down inside it.

So tomorrow

when the furniture moves

it will not mean

I stopped loving you.

It will mean

I finally started loving myself enough

to stop living like a guest

in my own home.

And God,

that is the part

this is about till finally letting go of the rage and fury he's been using to run himself ragged, the fuel he needed to keep going, the sustenance he had, and realizing that ivan was just as terrified and hurt and abused. ivan, someone who picked on his wounds and annoyed him all the time and played the cards so that he'd be in favor of the aliens, something till resented because he tried so hard to lash out and rebel, was just a scared kid doing his best, too. it's about realizing that mizi is just like him, too.

they were all just fucking kids, man.

it's like— there's a reason that ivan disappears when till come to terms with his feelings and he comes back when till's falling apart again. ivan appeared to have it all together but in the end even the one who left him with scars was the one who suffered just like him. and i dislike that people are going "we're free!" over till letting go of his feelings for mizi— this isn't about shipping or ivantill.