The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I just finished reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. It quickly climbed it's way into my top 10 favorite books. I recommend it to all of you who have not read it. If you have read it..read it again. I love it that much. Since I've been slow to posting on here lately, I thought I'd share with you a poem from the book that I love very much. It's morbidly wonderful.

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Chops"
because that was the name of his dog
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to his aunts
That was the year that Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo
And he let them sing on the bus
And his little sister was born
with tiny toenails and no hair
And his mother and father kissed a lot
And the girl around the corner sent him a
valentine signed with a row of X's
and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
And his father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it

Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Autumn"
because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because of its new paint
And the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed
when he asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told him why
his mother and father kissed a lot
And his father never tucked him in bed at night
And his father got mad
when he cried for him to do it.

Once on a paper torn from his notebook
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about his girl
And that's what it was all about
And his professor gave him an A
and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed her
That was the year that Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end
of the Apostle's Creed went
And he caught his sister making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
And the girl around the corner
wore too much makeup
That made him cough when he kissed her
but he kissed her anyway
because that was the thing to do
And at three A.M. he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring soundly

That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem
And he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
Because that's what it was really all about
And he gave himself an A
and a slash on each damned wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time he didn't think
he could reach the kitchen.

The body of a mother

"When a woman is twenty, a child deforms her; when she is thirty, he preserves her; and when forty, he makes her young again."

Leon Blum

I was twenty years old when a child deformed me. I stared at the little pink lines that confirmed my pregnancy and read the instructions over and over, convinced I had read it wrong. And from that moment, my body has never been the same. An even stronger confirmation than the pink lines were the waves of nausea, the exhaustion, the mood swings. Then the tightening waistbands and the baby bump. My son's Christmas gift to me was purple stripes across my belly. Pregnancy is a complete transformation. It is the first way that a child changes you. Pregnancy and birth quite literally scar your once perfect body. At times I look in the mirror with contempt for my new body, but today, I honor it. I am grateful for the little extra tummy flab that proves that I made the ultimate sacrifice of sharing my body with another. I am grateful for every stretch mark that bears witness to the child that grew inside me. I am even grateful for the way my chest sags giving proof that my body can sustain life from within and from without. I am grateful for the width of my hips that allowed me to bring a child out into the world and to hold him at my side as he grows. I respect and honor every inch of my new body.
Before my son, the moments that held the title "the best" were few and far between. No other moment can hold a candle to birth. Now I am blessed with moments almost daily that I can call "the best." All my baby has to do is lay his sweet, sleepy head on my shoulder and I melt into a puddle. Every time he reaches out to touch my face or gives me one of those cheesy, toothless grins my heart swells. I was twenty years old when a child deformed me. I was also twenty years old when I learned the meaning of life. When have you ever heard a mother question why she is on this earth? We don't ask, because each time we look into the eyes of our child, we know. Even after my son is grown and gone, I will remember. He has tatooed himself on my heart and on my body. And I will never resent the fact that skinny jeans might not fit, because I brought a child into the world. And no accomplishment, no weight, no perfect body could ever eclipse that joy.