Interweaved

I scratch my arms to shed your roots,

The roots that I embraced blind.

Our lineage delves beyond my skin,

Growing, just as yours did, generations twined.

Gnashes choke me like unruly weeds.

I feel my mother's mosaic of ailments,

A reflection etched onto her, I mirror.

Our roots stitched in her skin,

Bleeding a blood akin to mine,

A little girl, once and always.

Grandfather's malice sewn into my heart,

His benevolence, a boy's fleeting art.

Roots entwine like rope around my neck,

Squeezing, as his parents did to him,

As he did to my father, a cycle grim.

Grandma's voice quivers in worry,

I see her in my doubts,

A garden overgrown with weeds,

Sewing my lips with hesitation,

Silencing me, stifling my breath,

Our girlhoods asphyxiated by blind hands.

In the quiet communion of familial toil,

This garden whispers of a deeper soil.

An ivy lingers at the foot of forever,

Binding mother, brother, sister in tether.

Maladies intertwine, a dense thicket of emotion,

Livelihoods woven by an unrelenting thread.

I may sever each strand with bloodied hands,

But these roots are endless, forever they spread.