NIRALI, nirali

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I would look up at my mother wiping her tears in the morning,
getting ready for the day, putting on a bindi, braiding her hair
in that particular way, sliding a scarf around her neck,
things I would do much later in my life,
very mechanical, very intimate; just like she was,

and I would think about the kind of women she was,
and the kind of woman I wanted to be,
and the kind of woman she would’ve become if her life hadn’t happened to her.

And then I would think about the kind of mother she was,
with all her anger and loneliness,
sadness and despair,
I thought about the kind of mother I wanted her to be,
the kind of mother who wouldn’t pull and tear at my hair
because it had infinite knots while braiding it for school,
I used to let out a hiss and wondered what about these knots angered her so much,

Maybe it was the helplessness, the exhaustion,
of trying to make sense of the lumps in my hair,
of seeing a mess in front of you, a mess of you,
and not being able to figure out how to clean it up,

I wondered what I had done to deserve the kind of mother I had,
on the best of days,
and the worst of them,

I would think that when she would hit me with her sharp words and warm skin in her fits of anger,

And somewhere between all the good days and the bad days,
I had become her,
people keep telling me I look like her,
but it wasn’t just her looks that I had inherited,
she had passed on every fiber of her being,
every dejected part of her, she had given me everything,
And she knew it.

In the aftermath, in that unnatural silence that follows after,
in those quiet moments she would see me for what I had truly become,

so now I wake up every morning, wiping my face because the tears don’t stop,
they never do,

The actions very mechanical, very intimate,
just like I was.

I pick out a fresh bindi,
my hair taut in a braid.
I slide a scarf around my neck.