#intergenerational
Not the voice—
though I still hear it
in the way wind moves through curtains
on certain afternoons.
Not the hands—
though I still feel them
when I lift something heavy,
when I hold something breakable.
What remains is stranger.
The way he tilted his head
before answering a hard question—
I do that now.
The way he hummed without knowing,
a tuneless thing,
while reading the morning paper—
I caught myself doing it
last Sunday,
and froze,
and listened
to the ghost in my throat.
He taught me to tie a tie
by standing behind me,
our hands moving together
in the mirror.
Now every knot I make
is his hands
repeating their lesson.
He never said "I love you."
Not once.
But when I fell from the bicycle,
when the skin peeled from my knee
like wet petals,
he picked me up
not with his arms
but with his voice—
steady, unhurried,
as if falling
was just another way
of learning to rise.
I understand now.
Some men keep their love
in a locked drawer.
They open it only
when no one is watching.
They leave it open
just long enough
for the air to change.
Once, I found him asleep
on the couch,
the newspaper spread across his chest
like a second skin.
I watched his breath go in and out,
in and out,
and thought:
this is what holds the world together—
not prayers, not promises,
but a man breathing
in a room full of people he forgot
to tell he loved them.
He is gone now.
The house feels taller,
emptier,
like a body that has stopped breathing.
But sometimes,
when I am alone,
when the phone rings at the wrong hour,
when I solve something difficult,
when I laugh too loud at my own joke—
I feel him turn
in that vast earth,
turn toward the sound of me,
and smile
the way he smiled
when I wasn't looking.
Father,
you did not leave me.
You simply changed addresses.
Now you live
in the space between my bones
and my skin,
in the pause between my breath
and my next breath.
I carry you
the way the earth carries water—
invisibly,
essentially,
always.
Mar 17
Mar 17, 2026 at 6:11 PM UTC
I can't speak the truth that feeds on my wounds
I can't say because I survive on his provision
My voice doesn't matter, who will value me
I weep inwards, salting this bitterness
I go crazy because I can never be truly free
I loop in his betrayal
To my heart
my mind
my soul
...
my body
I was evicted out of the only safe harbour I had
Grandma said no grandpa!
Our bodies and voices are being harvested by our own!
They are yours, for your pleasure only
At our expense you've found your glory
Inherited this suffering because you did anyway
To survive, we gaslight ourselves
I can't bare to continue to live with this truth
So I breathe from lies
I put on my glasses to bypass this irk
My kids need me
My kids need to survive this monster
Let me be brave
Let me be brave just enough to live on these lies
Because their lives depend on it!
Sep 25, 2025
Sep 25, 2025 at 4:17 PM UTC
Against my will, I’ve acquired this skill.
I’ve mastered the art of fault-picking,
I excel at depreciating.
Still, urgently seeking something diminishing,
Secretly yearning -
To combat flaws I’m dissecting.
For some sort of force to pull me?
Up to standards I don’t fulfil,
Down from aching self-worth, still.
And just like my dad,
I mask my sad.
Mutually we intellectualise our wounds,
Seemingly, we’re bound.
Jul 15, 2025
Jul 15, 2025 at 8:28 AM UTC
I cannot say if things are worse
Than times that went before
For I saw not that bygone world
Nor what they did endure
Where once their sight was short,
Now it's growing nearer
Starter homes that once held court
Go "green" like silver mirrors.
Elixirless were garden hoses
Plastic cups, no holy grail beneath their noses
Now all you have left are pictures
That time has robbed of hue
I study them now, and try to suppose it
The complexion hides no trace of youth:
Just spoiled cream and rotting roses
A foul-odored truth.
The trade was fair when young were the eyes
That fixed upon that crest, their prize
Now turned white with cataracts,
Still they **** it dry
And turn to bottles for babes set aside,
Begging pity for the old and blind
And anyone too far gone to toil.
"It shall be hard time," or so they cry,
"Served beneath the soil."
It's hard time indeed, that which is served
Beneath the ravaged soil;
So tell me:
Can a head that sold me, the undeserved,
Anoint itself with motor oil?
Jun 20, 2024
Jun 20, 2024 at 1:45 AM UTC
My mother and her mother,
(four generations of mothers to be exact)
All conceived children They didn't want,
because They couldn't bear the alternative.
My sister and I are the only two who survived.
The intergenerational resentment
that is cast among each woman in our family
who decides to carry the burden of their unwanted child.
My mother loves us as much as she is capable-
Just like her mother and mothers mother before her.
Birthed into four generations of hurt,
that longed for acceptance and love that only a mother could give.
But each mother couldn't.
It took four generations of women and their pain
and longingness for love,
to create two women who are full of nothing but love
and are hungry to give it to the world
(we forgive you, because it's all you've known)
Jan 26, 2021
Jan 26, 2021 at 12:35 AM UTC
seventy candles flicker in a room full
the sweet union of voices
sixty-nine times before that day
the man walked the moon when I was ten
I had heard stories and so I dropped
the mentos
as my son speared it into the sky
giggles erupted and hearts soared
As our chins tilted toward the sun
Mar 2, 2019
Mar 2, 2019 at 5:17 PM UTC