Hard inheritance.

my mother’s hands are cracked like drought season,

lines that split into stories she never wrote down.

stories told in oil-splatter scars,

and the smell of fried onions at 4am.

she’d wave them off,

call them small things,

but I’d stare… I’d always stare…

as if her palms were maps I was meant to bear,

maps of labour,

of making enough from not enough,

of turning struggle into supper,

suffering into love.

*

my hands came out rough too,

not from toil, not from oil, not from smoke,

but from bloodlines that never broke.

some things are inherited without consent,

the pain you never lived, yet somehow represent.

memories passed like old receipts,

creases deep where our stories meet.

because the body keeps record when the mind forgets,

and the soul collects what the heart regrets.

*

my father’s skin darkened under the sun,

a burnt promise,

replaying his life’s half-won run.

his shoulders shimmer with the ash of years,

carrying fire, sweat, and unspoken fears.

*

and I, raised under nothing but fluorescent light,

still bear his shade, his silent fight.

the hyperpigmentation writes his story on my face,

the forehead lines… that wait, patient,

like time whispering you will become him too.

and I wonder,

what if becoming means breaking through?

*

how much should we carry, how much should we shed?

is inheritance a blessing, or a burden we dread?

they say, honour your lineage, but what if that means pain?

what if honour’s just holding the weight again?

*

the scholars say, keep the coarse hair, don’t erase your past,

but they forget, softness can also last.

Because to moisturize is not to betray,

it’s to heal the hurt, to clear the way.

*

so I rub shea butter into my palms,

watch cracks fade calmly like psalms.

maybe the legacy isn’t in the roughness,

but in choosing care over toughness.

*

my hands are still my mother’s, that much is true,

but they’re learning a new language too:

a dialect of gentleness, of repair,

of becoming whole through self-care.

*

my face is still my father’s reflection,

but I let it soften in quiet correction.

not from water and African sponge alone,

but from the skincare routines i’ve finally learned and owned.

*

hard inheritance, yes, but not a prison,

just a story in mid-revision.

and as my skin softens under light,

I learn that healing is also my birthright.