Fourteen Generations

~ by ~
Carla Gagen

Fourteen generations behind me,
And their echoes still pulse in my veins
Every whispered fear, every broken heart,
Every wound that has not healed,
Every truth they never dared speak.

They walk with me.
They breathe with me.
They are in the way my hands tremble,
The way my breath catches in the dark.

I carry their grief.
I carry their rage.
I carry their silence.
I carry their unspoken words
All these fragments of lives I never lived,
But still feel.

They did not know how to heal.
They did not know how to release it.
They held onto the broken pieces
And passed them down like heirlooms,
Believing they were gifts.

But now,
I have the power to break the chain.

For I am not just their shadow.
I am not their reflection.
I am the one who will remember their pain
But choose to rewrite the story.

Fourteen generations have shaped me,
But I will not be their mirror.
I will be the one who sees the past
For what it was,
And leaves it where it belongs.

For in my blood flows not just their trauma
But their resilience,
Their strength,
Their capacity to love beyond their suffering.

I am the bridge between what was
And what can be.

I am the one who will stand for healing,
For release,
For the breaking of every chain that has kept me bound.
And I will carry forward the strength of my ancestors,
Not as burdens,
But as wings.

Fourteen generations behind me,
And now I see.
I see their pain,
But I also see their courage,
Their love,
Their ability to survive.

I will no longer pass on their wounds.
I will pass on their light.