c/w: suicide
I felt peace on the first day in September
(World Suicide Prevention Month)
thinking about the funeral of my mother, no—
Mom. Sick with premature ease, I threw up
the lentil soup you’d made laced with love
and hooks to remind me of where I’d come.
Claiming poison by a food synonymous with care
is to claim neutrality in the stake of her life:
easy, but not without a fight. What went down
delicious came up violent and sour. Life
so sweet in the beginning, now the hardest thing
to swallow. Like being too much
my mother’s daughter.
M. Price (she/her) lives in Richmond, Virginia with her cat, Babycat. Her work can be found in Contrary Magazine, Rejection Letters, and Schuylkill Valley Journal. She tweets too much at @notmywurst