by Jenny Morelli
What does it take to belong?
A willingness to be
agreeable.
Easy.
Silent.
Flowing.
Following.
Blending seamlessly.
I’ll forever be longing for acceptance,
for community, for family; a place to fit in.
Searching for a way to say Me, too,
no matter how much
I don’t. The first place everyone
should belong (a birthright?)
is family, but I,
third child,
a last-of-three mistake; an accident, a desperate,
drunken-desire, ribbon-candied,
scheduled-excitement
make-up-sex
oops;
the tie-breaker daughter
with rarely-heard little-girl fists.
Unexpected.
Surprise!
Inconvenience to Dad. Waste of time
to sister; tagalong to brother, but to Mom,
I belonged. Her favorite.
My best friend.
I grew to be a womanteacherwifedaughter-no-more,
now that Dad’s gone…
and Mom.
Uprooted. Untribed. Unmoored. Unanchored.
Untethered from family,
afloat. Forever be-
longing.
I want to belong
to writers or teachers or friends,
but nurture trumps nature
and still I doubt
my self-worth, my place in this world;
a family-fostered deep-seeded
weedy doubt, a niggling,
strangling
toxin.
But emblazoned on my soul
is a small murmuring, that inner Mom-voice,
a tiny sprout of faith in the fecund earth
of my (un)identity that whispers
in my darkest doubts
You’re okay.
You still
belong.
This undercurrent beating pulse of who I am
is not wrapped up in where I belong
but in who I am…
Mom’s daughter, her favorite,
her best friend, heart and legacy,
so when I think I belong
nowhere else,
I’ll always belong
nestled within my memories of her,
with her, for her;
nestled within the pages
of my favorite book, my unfinished
story and also Mom’s,
the one that lives
inside my
mind.
No more silent. No more easy.
No more following or blending or searching.
Only me and no more too.
No more I don’t’s
and only I
will’s.
***
Jenny Morelli is a high school English teacher who lives in New Jersey with her husband and cat. She is often either inspired by her students or else they're triggering memories in her of when she was young and struggling with her self-confidence. She has been published in a number of literary magazines, including Spare Parts for a novel excerpt, Spillwords for several themed poems, and Bottlecap Press for her own chapbook This is Not a Drill.
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