At night she reads her daughter stories
of princesses in pristine gowns and fragile shoes.
She smiles at the girlish wonder
that blooms across her first-born’s face.
She does not explain the nightmare
of chasing happily-ever-after,
the jackhammer in her heart
as the jet engines roared outside the terminal.
She can remember the sweat on her brow
and the wail of the face at her hip.
She remembers the blood she scrubbed
off her pants the morning of their flight.
How her once smooth hands
kneaded dough and changed diapers,
clung to a pen on exams in a foreign tongue,
lugged suitcases into countries that despise her.
Shaking as she drove on the wrong side of the road,
searching for home in the international aisle,
sobbing in the car on the first day of daycare,
brushing her child’s hair and braiding her mother’s.
She promises her daughter will never know.
Her hands will remain uncalloused, her hair loose.
She will never pause at the scent of jasmine
and feel a longing so tight she thinks death came early.
A mother keeps the princess’ secret.
The weight of the family she leaves
and the promise to the family she leads.
A girl forgotten, a woman become.
UF PRISM 