Selected Works of Alexandra Lopez Iglesias

Unremarkable afternoon. 

Mundane. I finally broke. Decades of pain. 

Decades of numbing. Rabid beast at last unleashed. 

Shaking just below the surface. 

​

At the top of my lungs,

You don’t have to love me, but you don’t 

have to tell me to my face!

My six year old confused, scared, face covered 

in tears, “I do love you.”

No  you don’t!

​

I storm off.  All composure, all maturity, gone.  

Tears stream uncontrollably and uncharacteristically 

down my face.  Tears that I learned to suppress 

at a very young age. Tears that seldom materialize, 

replaced by an omnipresent tightness in my throat.

​

My greatest fear, 

my greatest pain, on full display. 

Had I really believed that my own mothers 

rejection wouldn’t emerge from the deepest corner 

of my being? How long did I expect it to lay dormant? 

Forever? Forgotten?

​

Exhausted, spent, languishing, I came up for air, 

and paused momentarily in the surrender. 

Stillness.

Oh shit.

Oh fuck.

This is not me. This is my mother. 

This has no place here. Not with me. Not with Maggie.

​

Definitely not with Maggie.