You said to leave you alone
Close the door behind me
While salt and vinegar crisps flaked on your chest
Video game addict

You needed a ride every day for every year you couldn’t drive yourself
Until you learnt to take a taxi
Subway alone
Uber cool kid

Many years ago I had said
Go away, give me space, don’t be asking where I’m going what I’m doing with whom and how
The prickly parenting of you
An itch in my throat
Thorn at my side

But emergencies are about mama
And sickness is about mama
And cola bottle Haribo
And the unanswered phone calls
making her sick with worry
The menagerie of rescued spiders, cats, dogs
The unaided eggs burnt
A noodle stuck to the side of a pot
Scent of clean cotton sheets and love

I know this now and you will too
As yours will one day
When perhaps the lesson comes too late
Tell her now
I miss you
Allow her to tell you
She misses you too
Her Runaway Train

For my mother and my son
Dubai, March 2019