Inheritance

They say I am like them. They call my name as if it belongs to them. They point at my face, at my hands, at the blood in my veins, as if it were proof that I belong to them. But their words are chains, and I feel the iron against my skin. I know their voices— thundering, cutting, commanding. I know their eyes— bestial, fixed in hunger. I know their steps— trampled earth, paths of fear. Grandfather beat the walls deaf, screamed his truth from his body, while the house flinched. At school, they smelled blood and gave me a name that was only mockery. Those who called themselves friends turned women into objects of their lust. They preached louder and louder hatred for those who did not fit their image. And outside, cities burned— war images of flesh and smoke, painted by hands that look like mine. The powerful and the powerless, all with the same blood on their hands. How can I be what has broken me? How can I carry what has hunted me? I do not want to be what they are. I do not want to breathe as they breathe. I do not want to carry the wounds they have struck upon me. I stand between mirrors, searching for a gaze that is not hostile. But my hands tremble, and my heart beats too loudly to let me forget: That I never learned to trust a man. Not even myself.