This is the first in a series of three pieces. The second can be read here.

by Kelsey Hamlin

Stretched over time
as the mountains
reached
for the sky
somehow, somewhere,
someone

planted whispering seeds,
invasive and relentless.
An idea of the nuclear family
aptly named
so that my struggling mother
may struggle some more
More, more
More worried over her desirability
in the eyes
of parasitic men
than the logistics of
her
choices,
the ripe beauty of differences
sprouting with her age
like a fine
wine.
And my grandmother,
for all her wit and laughter,
demands nothing
belongs
to her.
As if whoever watered them
to grow, to survive
wasn’t themselves
but
a Man.
The Man
who uprooted their lives
on multiple
devastations.
The Man
who soiled their beautiful
petals of hope
before
they even
blossomed.
The patterns are all the same.
But somehow, somewhere,
Someone
told them
“you are to be measured
by Man,
handled
quantified
owned.”
And they
                   believe it.