🩸 The Things I’ve Buried in My Bloodline

 

I’ve buried the silence that swallowed the women before me—

the tight-lipped bruises,

the swallowed screams,

the way they made meals out of grief and called it duty.

I’ve buried the men who never apologized,

just raised their voices louder

and expected that to be enough.

Expected the world to forgive them

because they came home.

I’ve buried the shame passed like heirlooms—

don’t wear that.

Don’t say that.

Don’t look too wild.

Don’t be too much like yourself.

I’ve buried the curses wrapped in tradition—

the ones that said suffering is sacred

but only when endured in silence.

The ones that asked me to shrink

so the family could stretch.

I’ve buried the poverty like bones in the backyard,

the hunger that taught me

how to survive off scraps—

of love, of attention, of dignity.

I’ve buried the women who worked themselves into stillness,

who bled on calendars and smiled through contractions,

who never danced barefoot in their own kitchen

because no one told them they could.

And still—

From all that death,

I rise.

With hips that remember freedom,

with eyes that don’t flinch,

with hands that cast and cradle,

with a voice sharp as obsidian.

I am the graveyard

and the bloom.

I bury what broke them—

and I bloom what frees me.