A Dance I Didn’t Choose
by Derya
She said,
she will do it again.
Not out of accident,
but with certainty.
With intent.
Tell it,
she said,
Tell it to your mother.
And she did.
She told it —
to my smoking mother.
I showed a finger.
That was all.
A silent, shaking protest
in a world where I could not scream.
No fists,
no flames.
Just one middle finger
raised like a shield
against fire I didn’t light.
But that was enough.
Enough to start
a chain.
A whisper.
A curse passed
from breath to breath,
from cigarette to cigarette.
And my mother,
with smoke curling from her lips,
didn’t ask why.
She only inhaled.
And joined the war.
And so,
a cycle began —
life and death
like footsteps
in a dance
I never wanted to learn.
A rhythm
I cannot escape.
A waltz made of poison,
and silence,
and blame.
But still —
I breathe.
Off-beat,
off-rhythm,
but still here.
Still mine.