I am my mother’s daughter
By Marion Rai
An immigrant anthem.
I. Beginning; fragile hands hold me firm to the ground, pressing weight of her heart we are painted of a lost, unknown culture: आमा. mother and daughter. afraid foreign land, fleeting fears II. End It begins and ends there isn’t a middle. It’s over as soon as it begins, abrupt. Like broken english that has been left to scratch the walls of her neck, choking in the depths of her throat and then the deafening silence. III. मृत्यु; eulogy haze. haze. haze. her silent pleas to not bury her culture within her, muffled like withering flowers in my malnourished body. Stifling stench of guttural death and frozen hands. I climb to the coffin and lay down my mother’s dreams. a silent death to all our unspoken words.
Girls Write Now On the Other Side of Everything: The 2023 Anthology
Do you know what it’s like to communicate with your family across a salty ocean’s divide? Do you want the sun and moon to enter your home with stories written in embers? Do you seek voices that will punctuate the darkness? Welcome to the other side of everything. It’s the other side of silence, the other side of childhood, the other side of hate, the other side of indifference, it’s the other side of sides, where the binary breaks down. It’s a new paradigm, a destination, a different perspective, a mindset, a state of openness, the space between the endless folds in your forehead, hopes for tomorrow, and reflections on the past. This anthology of diverse voices is an everything bagel of literary genres and love songs, secrets whispered in the dark of night, conversations held with ancestors under the sea.
Process
The inspiration for this piece mostly came from within; it was more like an overwhelming feeling that flooded my mind for a fleeting second and longed to exist—to become a being of its own.
Marion Rai
Marion Rai is a high school junior and an author of realistic fiction. Her short stories often feature communities in her home country of Nepal and look at issues of gender, culture and the spiritual/religious belief system. In 2021, she won third place in the LILAC Writing Contest for short stories and is an editor for Polyphony Magazine. She enjoys playing basketball and skateboarding.
