Ten Little Piggies
I have my mother’s toes. Ten plump piggy-faced reminders that however many markets you run to, you can’t ever fully escape the home you came from. It doesn’t matter what colour I choose, you can’t polish out genetics. I look down at them, and they look back up in reproach. I have my father’s smile, but it doesn’t suit me the way it suits him. That which, on his bristled face is warm and charming, feels jowly and awkward on my own. My smile is gappy where wisdom teeth used to be, cautious where joy used to be. I find myself catching that smile, reining it in so it doesn’t look too crazed, too unhinged, unleashed unbridled on the world. Always monitoring, always watching. My parents lurk uneasily within me. I am Frankenstein’s monster of parts - toes, smiles, mannerisms - barely holding myself together by sheer force of will. A gappy smile, a self-conscious hair flick, an inappropriate expletive - these parts my parents gave me all bursting to get out; tearing apart my seams. - My daughter’s toes are like jellybeans. Her eyes are whole galaxies and her smile lights up every hidden part of me, scorches the past, burns out the ghosts.