today i am feeling the stains
of my mother's memories thrash in my blood stream.
moments shadowed from my ears
lay their vicious consequences upon my chest.
ancient itches poke out at me
from the unraveling seams of inherited sweaters.
vintage fears passed down through
generations of women since the first reflection
was ever seen, garish and distorted in a rippling lake.
i wonder at the smudged details.
i wonder if these vanishing phantoms that appear to me
loud and visceral and jumbled
are just apparitions of my murky underbelly
or elusive clues being unearthed slowly.
each step I feel the weight steepen,
my features molding into ancestral craters -
variations on a theme i've been aching to destroy.
my thoughts are betraying me
yet the eyes staring back in the mirror tell me differently,
they pour back the razored gaze of jaded history.
i try to remind myself that i am a sculptor,
but this truth gets warped towards dreams of
shaving away
rather than building.