From Poetic Bipolar Mind: Whispers of Healing — a poem of the kitchen as inheritance: what a grandmother’s hands carried, what they were never allowed to say, and what her granddaughter is learning to set down and pick up on her own terms.
Her hands made thunder out of flour, Turned hunger into sugared power. With garlic moons and oil that sang, She healed the night our silence rang. Her wrists were rosaries of ache, Yet never snapped, they learned to make A feast from scraps, a hymn from bone— A woman’s magic, forged alone. “Mi niña,” whispered with a smile, “Your mind is a sea—just rest a while.” But storms were stitched into my hair, And shame was church, and grief was prayer. They told her women must be small, A second voice, an echo’s call. She fed the world and starved her dream— I break that fast; I dare to scream. I set the table, lay out truth, I salt the wounds of buried youth; Then rinse with tears, with thyme, with light, And bless the meal we bring tonight. My therapy is caldo slow, A simmered “no,” a steady “grow.” I stir the pot till labels melt, I season shame with what we felt. “Comer y vivir.” Eat and live— I plate myself the love I give. The kitchen flame becomes my pen; I learn to love the girl within. Our hands—her hands—refuse to tire; We pass the bowl; we pass the fire; The lineage loosens one last knot— Women who learned they are not “not.”
✦ Sit with it
Whose hands taught you what love looks like when it is cooked, carried, or quietly endured?
What did you inherit that you are choosing to season differently?
Thank you for sitting at this table. The full collection lives in Poetic Bipolar Mind: Whispers of Healing — and the conversation continues in the Creative Hub.
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