mother

age 6:

i swore to never be like her.

the mundaneness of her life bored me,

the flicker of a lost light behind her eyes terrified me.

before she had shed the tender flesh of a woman wise beyond her years,

was she recognisable?

she was no longer one,

but an empty shell of purpose,

haunted by the ghosts of her past and my future.

age 16:

no longer able to shoulder the weight of pending adulthood,

i allow my feet drag across the ground, to the house of my mother.

hunched over lead-heavy stacks,

unfocused eyes glazing over my phone screen.

yesterday was the same as today,

today the same as tomorrow.

CURSE THIS DAMN LINEAGE.

for my feet are and has always been

firmly planted in the footprints she left behind.