Mother's Seed

I know you're gonna be mad

And I promise I'm not doing this to hurt your feelings

I know you may not understand it

But I'm only doing it from a space of healing

And know that anything I ever say is

Genuinely from a space of love

Always

It's an interesting thing

Being your mother's seed while watching her grow

Watching her go from Section 8 to homeowner

Social worker to a cop

When I was little

Our vehicle was a bicycle

With a baby seat attached to the back

I grew up to watch this woman pull off in the newest Lexus in the lot

So when I tell you that I've been there to see it all

I really have

I watched my mom go from a cop to an entrepreneur

And I'm talking completely unknown

To being in high demand

See in my mind we were this

Home team of two with a few fans in the stands

My mother was left to raise me

Without the man who created me

So needless to say

I had to learn how to play a lot of different positions at a young age

First I learned how to run the point

I wasn't into boxing but instinctively

I learned how to dodge and weave

The emotional inconsistencies when her Prozac was low

And I laid low until she refilled

Either her bottle or her patience

I was a child wonder who was taught to play plumber

Before my own vocal pipes became the soundtrack to my own life

And I know there were a bunch of times

Where I had to be the one that had her wondering if she was even parenting right

As a toddler I was the throttle to her propeller

Her boy

She'd call me her best boy

I felt more like her buoy

You know, the only thing that kept her hope afloat at times

In my mind I was her lighthouse

Always there to warn her

Anytime someone came crashing into her shores just

A little too fast I was like that

Eleven-year-old ex-boyfriend she still lived with

And as she sprayed perfume onto her wrist

The grown man in the young me would always think to myself

Where you think you goin dressed like that?

You could not tell me that I wasn't my momma's protector

The judge and jury to every man

Trying to prove they were the best one for the job

None of them niggas ever lasted

But I did

Until I didn't

And I was just a kid

While being the man of the house

Sittin on pillow cases at twelve years old to go buy packs of hair

1A, 2B

Make sure they're 100% Kanekalon

And boy don't you forget to bring me back my change without that receipt

I grew up to be like that

Bird that left the nest but never flew too far away

See back then home was the closest thing I knew to healing

And I just assumed that

Tethered feathers always tended to mend quicker

Around the women who created them

But there's something that falls short of amazing

That happens in the process of pruning

When you discover that some of your feathers

May have been plucked and then disguised in the name of grooming

Because the moment I left that nest and became

Less of a place to feed my frequency

The moment I began to discover new things

And new female wings

The moment these wings began to do

Exactly what they were taught to do

The moment I began to learn how to fly

It just seemed like an attitude

Became synonymous with my altitude

And it was less time spent praising my ability to soar

And more time spent criticizing my form

And I started to feel bad asking the nest for help

But the more I attempted to become independent

The more I was told I was becoming selfish and

I just thought I was learning how to fly

All while being that friend

That best friend

That son

Alot of times what felt like a husband

Cutting board and moral support

And I was never meant to be all those things

But somehow Mom I ended up feeling like all those things you know

The purpose of cutting the umbilical cord

Is to teach your child how to eat on their own

Parenting is the ability to applaud your child

For their first catch without feeling the need to

Criticize them for the size of the fish

It's having the ability to give them a standing ovation

And finding comfort in your seat

When you are no longer the main focus

In their thank you speech

It's learning how to feel the love

Within the remnants of warmth

As they learn how to bask in their own limelight

And in hindsight

I guess it's not so much of a surprise

That with each passing day

My extended stay away from that nest

Felt a bit like retirement

I wasn't born to remain a co-pilot

Because if I was I wouldn't have been given these wings

But the truth is Mom

I couldn't have learned how to fly without you

But Mom, I learned how to fly without you

And now somehow my ascension

Has me flying without you

And I know this sounds crazy but

Some days I'm sorry that I found me

I'm sorry that I found these

Newfound boundaries, that I can

Only surround me with things and people

That feed me with the right type of energy

It's an interesting thing to be in mourning

Of someone you know woke up this morning

To find yourself processing

From a relationship in its twilight

But I know that we'll always have these stars

I know we'll always have these highlights

I promise to keep everything good inside of a box

I promise to take it with me

Every single where I go

I love you

But I gotta keep going

I'm sorry