From my short essay: "Sleeping in Flower Beds" For my Great-Grandmother, Mony
"When I see you it's like whiplash--I don't know who I am or where you've been, I am small and you are small--but I try to be too small to notice. Too small to realize that one day I will be big, and you will be smaller still, and continue to shrink until you are no where. I will stand at the place where your body sunk deep into the dirt and begged the flowers to grow, just like you promised I would--and I will throw my arms in the air and proclaim that I have grown. I will get very small, crouched like a cat on top of you, and fall down in tears. Crumble to water your flowerbed, the same way I did when I was small and "such a good helper."
I'll hold life in my hands and tell her that I am not you. I will never be you. And I will apologize. Then I will hand her to your daughter, and my mother, and the four of us will smile and know that we are the same. Same bone of tiny bone, flesh of same flesh, blood of same blood, and flowers from the same root."
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