I Wear Stains More Than I Wear Smiles

By Rachel Marie Kang
@rachelmariekang

I wear stains more than I wear smiles.
Like a smock that mocks,
motherhood makes a mess of me.
I wake, I stretch long limbs,
I hurl hurry into the humble faces before me, and
I dress in all my discontent:
I slip on socks of sorrow,
put on pants with pockets
big and wide and deep enough
to hold all of my disappointments.
I pull a sweater, two sizes too big,
over my head and it swallows me whole,
my whole fragile frame
made weak by the mundane.
Steady hands reach to enfold—
a cup—a kind calm to coat my throat for every
loud and rageful sound that lingers, like
intolerance on the tongue, and all the tired,
and tears, too, that fell, finding
familiar grooves and tracing my
silhouette, the still-soaked curve
that carries all my complaint,
all my lament, all my losses—
named and numbered, one by one by one.
And it is only dawn, the day still yawning,
and yet I am grasping for a thread of truth
in all these lengths and layers,
this remnant of reminders, telling me
my rags are worth more
than all the world's riches,
worth more than all the silk gowns
and diamond-stitched crowns.
Worth it for every smile stretched
ear to ear to ear—
yes, even mine—
though I wear stains more than smiles.
My smock that mocks,
motherhood made a new dress for me.

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Guest poem written by Rachel Marie Kang. Rachel is the author of Let There Be Art. She is founder of The Fallow House and her writing has been featured in Christianity Today, Ekstasis, Proverbs 31 Ministries, She Reads Truth, and (in)courage. Raised in New York and of African American, Native American (Ramapough Lenape Nation), Irish, and Dutch descent, she holds a degree in English with Creative Writing and Bible. Rachel writes and lives in North Carolina with her husband and two children—connect with her on her website and on social media.

Photo by Jennifer Floyd.