The Song I Will Not Pass Down

I dreamed a song — hush tones and haunted chords. A woman loved once, and it grew into a tree. She watered it with years, fed it her voice, slept beneath it, called the silence love. And in the final verse, she hung herself in its arms. I woke with the melody lodged between my ribs like a blade. I turned to you, my daughters, my mirrors, my storms unsoftened by shame. I almost sang it to you, almost let it pass from my mouth into your bones, like the women before me did — lullabies lined with martyrdom in a dress. But I stopped. Because I saw your eyes — not frightened, but awake. And you, fierce ones, you deserve a different song.