mother to daughter as grief

Carina Solis

​
 

Mother says I am a sinner. She combs my 

hair with kosher salt & weeds for curses in 

my tangle. I was supposed to be soft and 

paper-light; I was supposed to be moldable, 

A chalk of clay. 

But there are knots 

where my softness should be. I am uncut. 

And I am tired. So is mother, but it is time 

for supper now. We take a pair of kitchen 

scissors to our yard and cut at rotted basil 

leaves. We pray to the schlicks of rusted 

blades. We are ladybugs. We are flies. We are rest.
 

The moon hangs over our 
spotted heads. In the morning, I’ll wake to 
her grimacing from her splintered cot.
In the morning, I’ll wake to a rooster shrieking 
through the web of our broken window. In the 
morning, I’ll wake to pearls strewn on the
floor; I’ll finally be a rich man.  

In the morning, I’ll wake to a brown sky. 

In the morning, I’ll wake up and finally be a 

woman. In the morning—if there is morning—I 

will never wake up.

Carina Solis is a fifteen-year-old writer living in Georgia. Her work is published or forthcoming in the Eunoia Review, Wrongdoing Mag, Gone Lawn, CLOVES, and elsewhere. Find her at carinasolis.carrd.co, on Twitter @CarinaS74562803, or binge-watching movies. At 1:00 AM. On school nights.