![]() MJ is a Black, queer non-binary poet and parent. Their work is featured or forthcoming at Foglifter Press, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, Rigorous Mag, & Borderlands Texas Poetry Review. MJ has received fellowships from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, SF Writers Grotto, VONA, & Kearny Street Workshop. They are currently the Community Engagement Graduate Fellow in the MFA program at Mills College. Let Me Be Remembered As A Mother
(Jennifer Hart speaks)1 You will say it long after the plummet. You will replace mother with monster. Still I know how I loved them right til the end. I chose sea so water would cleanse them. Bought snacks – bananas for six little monkeys – to line their bellies for Benadryl. Sleep. Knocked back beers so I could find my courage. You must know I loved those children. Enough to kill them. To pay that ultimate price. Give them to God so Hell could not take them. Know I loved them in how I chose their ends. You must know how I prayed, how I kissed them, and sung. Unhooked their seatbelts – so they could sleep more comfortably. I loved them like dolls. 1 On March 26, 2018, Jennifer Hart drove herself, her wife, Sarah, and their six adopted Black children off of a Pacific coast cliff in Mendocino, CA, killing the entire group. All personas are fictionalized.
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10/31/2020 03:27:45 am
If there is one thing I want to be remembered for, I want to be remembered as a good mother. I have worked hard my whole life to be a good mother to my three kids. It is a very tiring job to have because you will lose all time for yourself. Sometimes, I find myself asking if I regret being a mother. I always think of the many things I could have done and the many places I could have visited if I did not become a mother right away. But, when I look at my children, all of those questions go away and I find myself full of gratitude that I was given the chance to become a mother.
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