Rebellious, Yet Willing Meat

I remember the fear of being eaten.
I knew that she was coming to devour me and that I had to resist, and I did. I fought that feeling for two and a half years, and then he was born and I couldn’t hold out anymore. I slipped under her teeth and felt the crunch. I was a child of Kronos, devoured by parentage. Motherhood wasn’t something I imagined for myself. All my life I didn’t want kids. Even as I write those words I hate myself for saying them, but they’re true. I got pregnant in university, careless under the spell of love, and found myself floundering under the egregore of Motherhood. Sometimes, I flounder still.
But I love them. I ache with love for them. I actively chose them. Motherhood is an unbearable weight, and yet we bear it. There isn’t a moment that goes by that I’m not painfully aware that everything I do will affect their future. I pray to every god I know of that I’ll be good enough, that they will thrive in every way possible under my care. They don’t belong to me and yet they are intimately mine.
How can I love this much yet still wince at the bite? Motherhood is a jaw contracting. Motherhood is a devouring; of all that you were so that you can become what you must. But Mother is not all of me. I want the title but not the definition. We get familiar with being chewed up and digested, but that doesn’t mean we have to label ourselves as food. Yet I don’t reject motherhood or its sharp teeth. I am rebellious, yet willing meat; a bridge between two realities that coexist inside me.