for my mothers

I was raised by matriarchs.

Women who know their worth, women with strong opinions.

They pour into communities, mothers to more than their own.

I was raised by prayer warriors. Women with might in their mouths & power on their tongues. Women who know how to cover you.

Women who hide their pain, women whose pain I cannot name. But when I see it in my mother’s eyes, I wonder if our pain is the same.

Is trauma generational if left unspoken?

Then it bubbles in my belly, I feel it in my body now. The bubbles burst into tears, I hear it in my cries now.

A vessel for foremothers to release, we can’t carry this pain much longer. These tears won’t let me drown, they are the water in my garden.

Generations of secrets become sunflowers, I am the seed that chose to speak.

Ashe.