The Inheritance

 I did not inherit land.

No deeds passed down in velvet folders,

no gold-lined photos,

no name etched in courthouse stone.

What I carry is quieter.

A survival stitched into my shadow,

a hush that follows me

like dusk trailing behind mountains.

They left me this:

a fractured lineage sealed by silence,

a story made of half-truths

and whole sacrifices.

And still, they whisper.

Even now.

From the fields they dared not name,

from kitchens where they stirred grief into cornbread,

they ask:

“Child, did we make you strong,

or did we make you invisible?”

I do not always know.

Some days I feel like a willow
bending,
never quite breaking,
but aching from storms
whose winds I did not summon.

Yes, I walk freely.
But the price was paid in erasure.

Yes, I speak loudly.
But only because they swallowed their tongues
so I wouldn’t have to.

My fortune is this:
the bones of a story buried too deep,
a spine curved by expectation
and longing in equal measure.

There were times I thought
I was soft compared to them—
they who dug through shame
with bare hands and blistered silence,
while I cracked from words
and memories left unresolved.
But Jehovah, You saw it—
those nights when silence
sat beside me like a guest
too familiar to be turned away.
When I buried versions of myself
to stay digestible.
When my body remembered
things I tried to forget.
When my hearing blurred the world
but never softened its cruelty.
And still, I stood.
With broken roots, I stood.

I wonder if they would recognize me,
this woman who weeps for what they buried,
who uncovers stones they laid
for the sake of safety.
Would they be proud of the way

I speak in branches now,
how I carry their blood
like wild ginger on my tongue?
Or would they say I’ve gone too far,
pulled back too many veils?


Some days, I don’t feel strong.
Some days, I feel like a reed

left out of the basket
before the river split.
But even reeds
bend toward the light.
Even cracked bark still holds sap.
They survived with silence.
I survive with sound.
Their strength was stealth.
Mine is in the rising tremble
of a voice that refuses to disappear.

Still, I honor them.
With each breath
that knows it came from theirs,
each scar I do not bleach,
each memory I hold tenderly
even if it hurts.
Their hands may have faded
but their fire didn’t.
It burns behind my ribs.. it is
a coal I tend daily.

If I am their fortune,
then I am not gold,
but granite..
weathered, firm, carved over time.
I am not polished,
but planted.
Not perfect,
but persistent.
I walk with the weight of many names
pressed into my skin..
some I was given,
some I reclaimed,
and some I simply remembered.

And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe my cracks
are not weakness
but windows
to the sky they never reached.
Maybe the fact that I still ask
if I’ve made them proud
is proof that I carry them well.
Maybe their silence
and my speech
are not war,
but weaving.

Maybe,
just maybe..
this is what inheritance was always meant to be:

Not comfort.
But courage.
Not applause.
But endurance.
And a trail of footprints
that look like both theirs
and mine.