alligators I had this recurring dream as a child in which my mother was eaten by an alligator. the set up was always the same; us, parked in our car in the lot at the arboretum. the alligator always came from below from under the floorboard and my mother was always quiet as if being destroyed and eaten in front of her daughter was just something that happened to have befell her like the common cold or a patch of dry skin. it was always sunny, one of those average Texas days where the steering wheel never quite cools down by the time you’ve reached your destination. it wasn’t the kind of dream in which I couldn’t move or scream or was forced into a slow-motion run. I remember the screaming. it’s much like the screaming in the footage of police encounters I see when they go viral taken by shaking cell phones or half concealed body cams. the screaming, it’s always the same. and I realize the alligator wasn’t ever appearing from underneath the floorboard it was always surrounding us all mutating from one generation to the next, a parasite hopping from one host to another. I feel it inside me I watch it shapeshift in my friends and on the nightly news reports and I wonder if my mother were still alive if she’d confront it too, instead of sitting still in silence like in my dream or would we both just wring our sweaty hands in careful speculation of the alligator’s point of view as the force with all the teeth and all the power and all the bite? that poor alligator forced to choose between who to kill first and how to do it. doesn’t anyone ever consider how it feels for him?
Dry well I’ve heard that motherhood is like little bits of your heart, being scattered across the ocean like a part of your soul, forever outside of you. I’ve been told it’s sacrifice It’s unconditional love It’s joy. I’ve read that what makes a mother is the time plus the effort plus the worry. no one has talked to me about the motherhood I know that is more like a persistently runny faucet. can’t catch all the drops; sometimes you forget it’s still trickling and somewhere in the kitchen there’s a wrench. but when the drip is the loudest when it’s come to a crescendo you can’t remember what a wrench looks like so you stand there, counting the plink plink plinks catching your breath wondering when to move again and what damage this is doing to the house and you think of all the times you knew exactly the shape of the tool needed to make it stop and it’s precise location but by the time the well had run dry you’d already forgotten how running water sounds.
Now that I have a son you never hear them say Now that I have a son. Now that I have a son I understand boys should be respected. I will teach my daughters to be better than our generation. Now that I have a son I regret how I treated the men in my life. I guess they really were people, too, after all. Now that I have a son I can see how society has failed them and how much power we women have. we have to do better we have to do the work, now that I have a son. but still you have to admit life would be easier if I only had daughters. but women can’t be trusted. I know this now that I have a son.
What Happened Was I had a journal on the nightstand next to the bed It was filled with the good kind of dreams, the shower thoughts the 2am I-gotta-write-these-downs They used to be urgent, necessary. each labor in producing life stole from the labor of my thoughts and each year that passed reduced shower uptake ad infinitum “mothers are superheroes” they say I guess they forgot to gift the cape when I brought the baby home and what happened was the thoughts still came but the urgency had already been spent and the necessity was the mothering that they told me was so important what happened was I stopped sleeping at all
this wake This wake is compiled of chatty passersby and sullen relatives a collection of limbs and aggravated patterns restricted by white-washed walls of expectations and mourning. They built this casket from ancient forests and toxic chemicals and didn't expect it would burn so quickly Give me ashes so I can understand it between my fingers and in the creases of my sweaty palms. His eyes: glazed, robotic, dark won't blink, won't stare, are caught trapped inside their sockets like bottled water. This scene is just another compilation of seconds, minutes and hours regurgitated onto his watch that the mortician forgot to remove (or left on his wrist for a sense of familiarity) This loss has been made absolute through the score, lines and expressions The guitars- the keys- the strings- Stevie Ray Vaughn's gruff serenade: an ode from one dead man to another. Our Father, who art in a state of dispute, attempts to paint some bigger picture plan through collages of old photographs and stained handwritten notes. This story, only understood if told backward, or in another language I don’t speak or maybe a few puzzle book hand gestures, no longer needs him. And the family landline reverberates long after the service's been cut and the bouquets've turned brown. Am I supposed to listen through the static for a voice on the other end, a person to re-imagine this home minus one? This wake is more like sleep than anything I've seen so far. And I wonder, hand to chest, finger to lips, staring at a shell: this is the way we honor the dead?
Molly Wadzeck Kraus is a freelance writer and mom of three. Born and raised in Waco, Texas, she moved to the Finger Lakes region of New York, where she worked in animal rescue and welfare for many years. She writes about feminism, mental health, parenting, pop culture, and politics. She is usually late because she stopped to pet a dog.
