My Mother’s Sins Are Not Mine

My Mother’s Sins Are Not Mine

My Mother’s Sins Are Not Mine

I walk through her rooms,

where whispers stick to the walls,

I do not take her anger as mine,

I do not inherit her regrets.

The air smells of burned sugar and old mistakes,

but I am not bound to them,

I open windows and let daylight fall,

letting the past fade without asking permission.

I hear her voice in the quiet hallways,

but it does not echo inside my chest,

her footsteps leave prints on the floor,

but I carve my own paths through the dust.

Her eyes once held storms and fire,

I see them now and only remember,

that I am separate, walking my own lines,

not chained to the sins I did not commit.

The rooms breathe with shadows of memory,

but I move with sunlight in my hands,

I do not carry the weight of her choices,

my heart beats a rhythm all its own.