The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Nice to See You Again, Mother 
by Alina Măciucă 

You caught it growing on your bathroom ceiling

When you came back from a Tuesday night out

With the boys and the girls from the office.

You thought it was smirking at you,

But it could have been the wine, the gin and tonic

And all those cigarettes.

By Friday it had reached the foot of your bed

After you had already tried to wipe it off and scrub it

Away and kill it in sixteen different ways by

Following methods and recipes you found in three

Different women’s magazines.

You knew it was a she by Sunday afternoon,

When you saw her making a nest out of

Your writing desk–she was careful and discrete,

And the green looked great against the mahogany.

You were already calling her “mother”

By Monday evening, and she had already sealed

The door, but you didn’t mind. You knew

She’d open it one day, when she deemed you

Ready to be reborn into the world, to burst

Out of her womb. By Tuesday, she had already

Sealed your lips, but you had nothing left to say,

For mother understands all there is,

And all there is not.

.

Fiction © Copyright Alina Măciucă
Image courtesy of  Pixabay.com

More about Alina Măciucă:

Alina Maciuca lives in Bucharest, which she loves to capture in highly imperfect photos. Sometimes, she posts those on her social media. She thrives in big cities and aeclectic communities, and her needs are often met during her travels. So far, her work has been published in Vastarien, Space and Time and Penumbric Speculative Fiction Zine.