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My mother says I cannot speak like a normal person. She says every conversation with me turns into a metaphor with no parking.

“Talk to me like a human being,” she says. “I don’t need a poem. I asked you a question.”

And I laugh, because she is right.

Then I tell her, “Well, I’m not human. So why would I speak to you like one?”

This, of course, does not help.

She looks at me like I have personally insulted common sense.

“Enough.”

“Speak normally.”

But somewhere along the way, my thoughts stopped walking in straight lines. They started taking the scenic route, turning left where everyone else would have simply answered.

And please understand—

this is incredibly amusing to me.

Because my mother is not a woman without language. No. My mother has language. She can say one sentence and make it sound like a door being thrown open during a storm.

So when she tells me not to speak in poetry, do you understand how funny that is?

This woman, who can slice the air with one sentence, wants me to hand her plain bread.

I own the entire collection of Sylvia Plath.

Every book.

Every page.

Every bruise.

I have not opened a single one in over a decade. Not because I stopped admiring her. I didn’t.

It is just that somewhere along the way, those books became less about Sylvia Plath and more about my mother.

Once, while we were rearranging books, I left my Sylvia Plath collection on the coffee table. My mother and I both own a ridiculous number of books, but I do not write in mine. I do not underline. I leave the pages alone.

So when I came back and saw ink on Sylvia Plath, I almost left my body.

My mother had underlined things.

Not gently.

Not in pencil.

Ink.

On the page.

In my book.

As if Sylvia Plath had not already suffered enough.

Then she looked at me and asked, “Does this make any sense to you?”

And I said, “Well, you have to look at her from where she was standing.”

My mother shook her head.

“This is the most heartbreaking thing. There is no joy in these books.”

And I was upset.

Obviously.

Because again,

actual ink.

But I also laughed, because somehow my mother had managed to vandalize Sylvia Plath and prove my entire point at the same time.

Ever since that day, I have quoted Sylvia Plath to my mother every chance I get. Not because I’m feeling particularly Plath-like. Not always.

Sometimes I do it simply because she underlined my books.

This is what you get.

You touch my Sylvia Plath, and now you have to live with Sylvia Plath.

Forever.

Every now and then, she’ll ask, “What are you doing today? What plans do you have?”

And instead of saying work, errands, laundry, coffee, like a normal daughter, I’ll answer,

“I desire the things which will destroy me.”

She closes her eyes.

And I smile, because she knows.

This has nothing to do with today.

This is an old debt.

The punishment for underlining my books.

And I have every intention of collecting it for the rest of her life.

My mother has no patience for Sylvia Plath.

To me, she is a poet.

To my mother, she is a weather warning. A pressure drop. A room losing air. An anxiety rash waiting to happen.

The kind of poet who makes my mother’s soul reach for antihistamines.

Too much ache.

Too much bell jar.

Too much woman

making pain
answer back.

So when my mother tells me not to speak in metaphors, I try.

I really do.

But I don’t know where normal ends and language begins.

I have never been fluent
in ordinary.

My mind

has always preferred

the long way home.