Chronology

I: Fear

Your fingers delineate maps

In attempts at enveloping all of you.

Ache to have a face of your own:

You wear an ancestor's face.

.

Look down in the bath and they stare back,

Deforming slowly within the ripples.

Shut your eyes tight and gauge them out

Yet, you dance with resemblant ghosts.

.

II: Doubt

.

Toss memories out on the road,

Ignite gasoline on the grounds behind you

Yet, they crawl right back into your veins.

Will you look after them?

.

Blanket the ghosts in you for insulation,

Ask to hold hands for comfort?

Stifle the wrench,

Because you'll never hold your very own?

.

III: Acceptance

.

Sit there in deafening silence,

With the unfathomable ghosts of ancestry

That linger around in your children, and theirs

Long after you're gone.

.

House a body for eighty-something years.

Ache for it to someday feel like your own.

Hope for resemblance to fade away,

But you'll always wear an ancestor's face.

Shanum closely resembles a raccoon, send her reasons to cut down on caffeine at shanumsarkar18@gmail.com