Healing Gaia

This piece was created as an answer to the prompt: "Write about your favorite poem".
My favorite poem has been Mother to Son by Langston Hughes since the sixth grade.
A copy of that poem can be found at the end of my writing.

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Looking down at my belly,
I see the stretched skin staring back at me.
White marks that run parallel to the place where you laid.
I think of my womb that cradled you

and kept you safe.

Now I hold you in my arms with fear.
Scared to show you to the world. 
Afraid of what you might find there,
or what might find you.

I see your face and am reminded of the splinters on my feet 
and the boards torn up in my childhood.
Hoping you never have to feel this hurt on yours.
Hoping you will be

reachin’ landin’s

and turnin’ corners 
to places accepting of you.

I realized a bit too late,

it feels, 
that I need to remove the tacks laid in to my cork board heart. 
The work feels endless.
The only way out is through, 
I'm reminded, 
but laying myself bare like floors with no carpet on them 
makes me want to run.
I can't turn back from this healing though;
It's good for us,

even when I find it kinda hard.

I wonder if one day you will ever know that I kept climbin’ on.
Wincing from my scratched feet in the dark. 
Arms open wide to the sky; 
tired from the weight of the prayers I say,

hoping you will always see the light in life.

Sweet child, 
I tell you,
life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
I’ve learned though,

no matter who you are 
It won’t ever be.
Even so, I work everyday in hopes that it can be as close to crystal 

for you.

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Mother to Son

By: Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.