my mother’s trousseau

is not filled with bed spreads and sheets. i have no hand embroidered pillow cases. no lace frilled table cloths or curtains. i have been collecting my own sheets. i inherited linen from her cupboard. but the linen is not linen, it is polyester and synthetic. polycotton blends of machine designed prints. no hand-woven. no hand-stitched. no passed down cloth that’s lived on the beds of all the women in my family. i have no hand-carved wooden chest, no brass lock and key to keep things safe. no mothballs, no lavender to keep the intimacy of my sheets fresh. the intimacy of our sheets is not fresh. it is fraught with frayed dreams hung from the wispy hairs of my mother’s temples. it is softly packed away in the folds of her arms. it is wafting silently through her curtains on sunday afternoons, when the light remembers to fall through her lounge windows. my mother’s home is no longer my home. i have been learning to leave since i first learnt to walk. unlearning her fear: unwrapping it from my skin. unlearning her shame to set both of us free. unraveling all that ties us up tight, and fat, in our bones and skin. and waiting, waiting, for the ease to return to our joint breath. i have been learning to leave since i first learnt how to breathe. on my own.