Half Of Grief ; Half Of My Grandmother

By Nabiha Aijaz

I am the feminine reflection of my father and his un elegant anger, I have my grandfather’s fondness of tea and walking with pride, I lack woman in me, there’s nothing I Carry of my mother. So I take my mother’s gold ring and wear it, to be kin, to belong. And if I think hard enough, I got my grandmother’s bitterness, she speaks like raw coffee beans crushed up between teeth, Bitter and sharp, cold, distant, pale, something hateful, loathing, it is violence, the bloodthirst, I inherit my grandmother’s cruelty. I have always been half of grief and half of my grandmother.

By Nabiha Aijaz