Roots

Why is my family so divided?


Maybe because my mother never healed her wounds
 they became our inheritance.


Pain handed down,
 like brittle heirlooms
 we never asked for.
She wore her sorrow like armor,
 searched for validation
in the eyes of strangers,
 In the praise of her children just to feel like she was good enough,
 even when she couldn’t believe it herself.
And me?


I was the firstborn.


The one who carried the storm.
The one who inherited the weight,
the expectations,
the hurt.
Then came the truth
Black,
Queer,
African.
An abomination
in a house that worshipped silence,
where my truth
was a sin they couldn’t understand.
I spent years
bending, breaking,
trying to fit inside their dreams
while my own dreams turned to dust,
my voice muffled
beneath their expectations.

But life…


life gave me a second chance.
And this time,
I chose me.
No more shadows.


No more lies.
 No more pretending.
Today,
I stand without the weight
 of a mother who cannot see me,
without the closeness of a sister
who doesn’t know me,
 without a father
I’m still learning to trust.
But still
the nights stretch long,
the ache is real,
 but regret?


Regret does not walk beside me.

Because today, 
I am married to love.
 I am married to truth.


I am married to the woman
 who sees every piece of me,
and holds me anyway.
And together, we laugh,
a reminder that life
is still full of love,
 still full of choice,
 still full of light.
I chose me.
 And in that choice,
 I found home.

                                                                 Anonymous