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.

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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.

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II: Doubt

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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?

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Blanket the ghosts in you for insulation,

Ask to hold hands for comfort?

Stifle the wrench,

Because you'll never hold your very own?

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TWO POEMS

III: Acceptance

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Sit there in deafening silence,

With the unfathomable ghosts of ancestry

That linger around in your children, and theirs

Long after you're gone.

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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 [email protected]