Wednesdays on One Poem Only are Handpicked, a new feature where I go deeper into the poem of the day and discuss what made it stand out to me.

“Hija de tu madre.”

Elisha Fernandez

“Eres hija de tu madre.”

“You are your mother’s daughter,” is a phrase I heard growing up,

from strangers,

family members,

friends,

most repeated by my own mother.

I wanted to claw myself out of my skin

Panicked by the implication

That I did not belong to myself

I could not crawl above my station

Limited to the constraints and expectations people thrust on me,

Like a hermit crab forced to stay in a shell too-small,

No room to grow or become my own person

Keeping me trapped against the wall, a doll stuck between pavement,

yearning to bloom

My achievements, struggles, and experiences

No longer my doing, the credit stripped away

Loneliness taking over as I stay, rewatching the events of the past twenty-some years

Through the lens of someone else’s existence

It was so unbearable

I eventually avoided the topic altogether

It felt easier to snip the thread we twined, connecting us,

so that I could cement my own self, my own role

In your mind, in mine

The separation frayed us both,

But I learned that it was healthier for us to co-exist

Side by side, free from the harm we imposed on each other

Than to be attached at the hip

And that time apart

Gave me the space to see you, truly,

To take you down from the pedestal,

To get to know you fully

I think I’ve accepted that I am my mother’s daughter,

In the sense that it’s true,

I inherited her stubbornness and pride,

Her love for words and witty sayings,

Her craving to be important, the hunger to be accepted,

I inherited her precision and wide-eyed curiosity

Beyond the superficial, it’s hard to admit that while she birthed me and learned me,

she also weaved her own insecurities and doubts into the fabric of my being

She tried, and failed, to love me in her way, staining me with blood and tears and loathing

She imparted her wisdoms and her wrongdoings,

I see the person I could’ve become, had circumstances been different

I may have been born in her image,

But I stitched myself into the likeness of what I desired

I became unraveled;

A bolt of cloth to gather anew

I hemmed the tattered edges, patched up the holes,

And threw out the patterns I had always followed

Soy hija de mi madre,

But can’t I also be my own?

Can’t I exist

Without relinquishing to the image of

An identity I don’t claim

And acknowledge

That I am also my mother’s daughter,

In the sense that I mothered myself

More from Elisha Fernandez ↓

• @artistaelisha on Instagram

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Two poems. One poet. Let the words keep moving.