to be a mother and to be unfree

is to wish for a boy

if only to thrust the weight upon his arms instead of a daughter’s thighs

and to not watch her swallow everything that stains your own tongue

it is to feel any uncontrollable thing in your stomach

and wish it dead

lest you both share more than just a bed, like the hands on your hips and the things you can’t believe in

to carry every shame inside your breasts

and every bit of Other inside a different place

and to know that no amount of blood

could widen the distance between you and your child

to be a daughter and to be unfree

is to be born into fire with a womb already burned

and laid prone in the same bed that mama did months before

to feel that warmth of her body once there and to know it will never fade

it is to be born without words, stolen from lips that have not yet cried

and to have that final breath of will stripped from you, such a destined thing

it is to be born trapped in a mother’s legacy

and bear the inheritance of rapists

and the unnaturally hereditary nature of victimization in America