Taking After Mother.

By Subhashree Pattnaik

People often told me 
That I take after my mother 
In the way I look like her 
The same structure of defeating nose 
The same frizzy hair with wild curls
The same innocent eyes 
That dry up at nights without glaring.

But I have begun to think 
Now that I’m not an unaware child anymore 

That I take after her in
More than just disappearing looks
In how my eternal kindness has never 
Been returned— I still never run out.
Silence on the other side of the phone, 
Echoing like a hanging telephone
Yet I always pick up 
Bare hands desiring for something to hold
So be it an absent emblem of unreturned help.

No critical appreciation
No remarkable remembrance 
A perfectionist performance of regular chores 
Only to be forgotten and ignored 
Like a god’s prayer that was answered.
Because that’s what makes us women, 
Endless labor and no recognition
A dying sadness through a forced smile.
And a tranquil heart, long lost in a spiral 
Of terrific crowds. 

I take after her in 
My loneliness disguised as independence— 
My hands chaotically searching for things 
Because time has never stopped for us—
Multi-tasking, managing, working, 
Solitude is sometimes a struggle 
And my mother makes sure 
I learn to handle my anger.
She knows what she has passed on 
Other than the generational grief 

Of womanhood so, she asks me
Not to repeat mistakes 
Of staying at the same place— home
To never love, to always let go 
To cut threads and ties.
We both can’t stand a privileged man 
Exaggerating about his destined success.