By Chinwe Olive Egbuta (Transcorp)
Was she like me? I wondered.
When my lips pressed against his,
I wondered if she had many men to kiss.
Was it just father she had?
Or were others enchanted over her reticent prowess?
I have come to encounter some men who admired Johnny for marrying her.
When I obsessed over my features?
I wondered how hers might have made her irate.
From our sensitive skin, I could feel past and present lay parallel as I feel my body.
Wondering why my mother was on my skin.
For to have her DNA, I certainly was existing in some cell.
So when each dermis was replaced, I still remained.
Those that regenerated became me.
When I wondered about my identity at age 26.
Did she wonder what marriage to Johnny would be like at that age?
To have held and to have let go of hers prematurely.
I wonder if my temperament is as similar to hers.
I wonder if my endurance will ever be like hers.
To fight like her, I perceive like a formidable scent my inability.
For her to be modest when times I want to be indifferent.
With it all, when I measure the differences, I am still my mother’s daughter.
Maybe living alike in this space, with our similar proclivities and skin.
And then me existing in an alternate dimension,
Where I get to exist, forming an identity for my daughter, to either accept or deny.
With time, truths revealed and narratives visited and revisited,
I have come to form opinions of who my mother is.
I have come to accept her opinions that are contrary to mine.
For I am my mother’s daughter, and I am me.
