IDENTITY

It is Ingi’s funeral. My skin, my mother says, is moonlit against the satin and the lace; the colour of heaven’s nightgown. Wrapped around the spear of my waist, are the wrestling fibers of her hometown.

When I bend to the floor, it is not the parroting drums that compel me, not the tug of ritual corals, manacled to my ankles and wrists. It is the weight of expectations from women who once walked this soil before me.

I am not at home in a place my mother calls home, dancing in honour of a matriarch I never knew, awash with guilt in knowing I will never know her. Even now, I still feel guilty for the things I cannot change

Like the leaking tank outside my rented room. Plumbers have come. Plumbers have gone, with nothing to show, but for floors

Slippery like the artisan you cannot trust—but he is the cheapest one you know—doing double the work, for half the price. The regret comes free of charge.

My body still fits in the same blouse I wore when I was twelve. The zipper zooms skyward, and it feels like a road trip again, like the ones when we were kids. You sat still, silent, watching time travel through you.

Sometimes, I feel like a spectator in my own life, watching through a mirror somewhere, watching a little girl dance the best that she can, unsure of the steps, unaware she will inherit her mother’s curse

She will blame herself for staying, when everyone left. She will grieve at surviving. She will struggle to forgive herself. She will not have it easy.