My Son’s Room

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
breaking my heart the most. 🕯️