The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Fluids

The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Fluids

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
— Maya Angelou

My mother is exhausting. When she comes through the door I brace myself to be loved. I prepare myself to be cared for. Her love is suffocating. I come up for air between squeezes and questions about my health and overdue library books.

I am my mother’s first and true love. She says she dreamt of me before I was born. In 1981, before she even knew of her pending motherhood, she dreamt that her sister (my…