A crisis is born, kicking and screaming until another relegates it to partial nothingness. Crises never die; they occupy the cracks that one might eventually slip into, either on their own or, perhaps, through their own.1 Crisis is born out of intention, not ignorance. We have heard this before, have we not: the triteness of speaking of the everydayness of the state of exception.2 What is peculiar, however, is that while crises near and far fnd their place in words, those embedded in us, and in which we are embedded, forming the matter of our conscious and unconscious selves, remain repressed. How have we failed to see the living, breathing crisis of bringing a stranger into the world, raising them as one’s own, and dying with the burdens they house? How have we collectively silenced the crisis of motherhood? Jacqueline Rose’s Mothers splits our world open to reveal the ugly head of all that we buried deep inside the womb of our social fabric: our failures and the continual relaying of the same on to our mothers. Rose not only crafts an eloquent piece that leaves you gasping for air from the weight of her words, but also weaves an abundance of literature into an essay like no other