Beirut is my mother

Interrupted

I found my mother at the Korean spa

She bathed me with coconut milk then rinsed me with bear hands

She asked how old I was

I said 5

“I am Esther” she whispered

I teared up and turned away

Where was mother all those years?

At the Korean spa? In Japantown?

Today, I am grieving

I know it when I am binging investigative journalism

The truth requires work

And my mother did not love me

And it took six years of investigating on a couch

How come grief won’t leave?

I walked up a hill to a place I used to work before we were interrupted

A lockdown, an explosion, an orange smoky city made it so I won’t get to be a therapist with a couch

Maybe I get to be 5 until I am interrupted again

On the steps of the clinic

Where we wrote clients’ cancellation by hand

I write in my journal

Is it enough to write?

I meet beautiful compassionate white people in San Francisco

They have a lot of energy

My body is sinking into a sea of coconut milk

Will they save me?

The clock ticked and it had been an hour

Esther was no longer my mother

I am no longer a therapist

by Jess Semaan