Tree Mother
A boy goes to see a mother who is a hundred feet tall. She lives in the woods, as tall as the trees, and her giant eyes peak out through the treetops. The boy has known for a long time that this is his mother. He is not a giant boy. He fits just fine in his house with his father who refuses to so much as look at the forest.
Sometimes his mother is there in the tops of the trees, sometimes she is not. Sometimes he stayed up late to watch her eyes fade and blink in the tops of the trees as she fell asleep.
One morning the boy snuck from under his father, took his arrows and snuck into the forest. No matter how far the boy went there was still forest between him and his mother. Either the forest was enchanted to stretch space endlessly between the boy and his mother, or she simply did not want to meet him.
Man Mother
There is a shooting star that crashes into a house. They ask the star to do a trick. It is not a child but an old man who decides he is their mother now. He stands up from the body of the witch, who had run the orphanage for years. He is very bright, it is painful to look at him. He has an unkempt gray mustache and an angry paunch. Everything he touches he turns to glass. He breaks one of the girls he touches and reaches out to touch the others. But the other girls pin him and use bits of the broken girl to cut off the old star’s hands and feet. They toss these into the silvery fire he’d started. Don’t you feel bad that you cut up our friend? I am an evil old star, he says, pawing at them with bleeding wrists. Aren’t you remiss to have been a star at all? I am your mother, he says. We are orphans, they say. He cackles and spits like a cat so they cut out his tongue. His half-tongue goes on waggles and gags in the gape of his mouth. He glows brighter still. They gouge his eyes and he goes out like a coal. They cut and eat the glands from his neck, as they are orphaned and hungry. They cut and eat the strings in his arms. The man is there like a pin-doll beside the fireplace. Free finally from him, the girls have time to mourn their friend. They hold onto her like knives bleeding in their hands. We loved her, we loved her.
GOO Mother
My mother is at the end of the street there where she gives me my lunch box. She is in a pit of tar for repairing the street and wants to kiss me goodbye before school. She has asked me to bring friends and I have pushed them inside her. When you fall into my mother she grants you three wishes. She has the power to kill and to give life again. Mother, may I grow up to be a man? Mother, may I love another man? Mother, may I be alone for a minute. We cannot talk in the tar but communicate with it, the pressure pushing in on you, sucking on your legs like ‘yes,’ sucking on your arms like ‘no.’ Before you leave, Mother gives you a magic ring that makes you never feel guilty again. I’ve lost many friends when they go into my mother and come out in a different version of this world where they don’t have to know I ever existed. This is how we grow up far away from each other without ever feeling guilty. Please just hug me, Mother says. No. I’ve got what I needed.
A boy goes to see a mother who is a hundred feet tall. She lives in the woods, as tall as the trees, and her giant eyes peak out through the treetops. The boy has known for a long time that this is his mother. He is not a giant boy. He fits just fine in his house with his father who refuses to so much as look at the forest.
Sometimes his mother is there in the tops of the trees, sometimes she is not. Sometimes he stayed up late to watch her eyes fade and blink in the tops of the trees as she fell asleep.
One morning the boy snuck from under his father, took his arrows and snuck into the forest. No matter how far the boy went there was still forest between him and his mother. Either the forest was enchanted to stretch space endlessly between the boy and his mother, or she simply did not want to meet him.
Man Mother
There is a shooting star that crashes into a house. They ask the star to do a trick. It is not a child but an old man who decides he is their mother now. He stands up from the body of the witch, who had run the orphanage for years. He is very bright, it is painful to look at him. He has an unkempt gray mustache and an angry paunch. Everything he touches he turns to glass. He breaks one of the girls he touches and reaches out to touch the others. But the other girls pin him and use bits of the broken girl to cut off the old star’s hands and feet. They toss these into the silvery fire he’d started. Don’t you feel bad that you cut up our friend? I am an evil old star, he says, pawing at them with bleeding wrists. Aren’t you remiss to have been a star at all? I am your mother, he says. We are orphans, they say. He cackles and spits like a cat so they cut out his tongue. His half-tongue goes on waggles and gags in the gape of his mouth. He glows brighter still. They gouge his eyes and he goes out like a coal. They cut and eat the glands from his neck, as they are orphaned and hungry. They cut and eat the strings in his arms. The man is there like a pin-doll beside the fireplace. Free finally from him, the girls have time to mourn their friend. They hold onto her like knives bleeding in their hands. We loved her, we loved her.
GOO Mother
My mother is at the end of the street there where she gives me my lunch box. She is in a pit of tar for repairing the street and wants to kiss me goodbye before school. She has asked me to bring friends and I have pushed them inside her. When you fall into my mother she grants you three wishes. She has the power to kill and to give life again. Mother, may I grow up to be a man? Mother, may I love another man? Mother, may I be alone for a minute. We cannot talk in the tar but communicate with it, the pressure pushing in on you, sucking on your legs like ‘yes,’ sucking on your arms like ‘no.’ Before you leave, Mother gives you a magic ring that makes you never feel guilty again. I’ve lost many friends when they go into my mother and come out in a different version of this world where they don’t have to know I ever existed. This is how we grow up far away from each other without ever feeling guilty. Please just hug me, Mother says. No. I’ve got what I needed.
