“I’m My Mother’s Daughter”

(and the stories she knew before I did)

I used to believe

I was born from my own fire—

a spark flung from some lonely star,

untouched, unshaped,

my voice my own making.

But the more I wandered through stories,

the more I found her

waiting in their folds.

A mother who tore the earth apart

searching for her child—

not with rage, but with bloom,

with wheat curling around her fingertips.

She didn’t shout,

she starved the world into remembering.

And I saw it—

the way mine loved in silence,

how she waited for me

without ever asking

why I left.

There was another,

a goddess in soft silks and quiet prayers,

who shaped a daughter from clay,

breathed life into her,

and let her dance.

Not once did she ask for thanks.

And suddenly I remembered

the hands that stitched my dreams together

while I was too busy chasing them.

There were stories too,

of a girl born to a woman

chosen by heaven but broken by men.

And how that daughter,

though left unnamed in many pages,

must have watched her mother

stand beneath a cross,

and learned that love

sometimes means

watching pain you cannot stop.

I think that’s when I understood

why my mother always turned her face away

when I was hurting—

not from weakness,

but from too much knowing.

In the west,

they whispered of a woman

whose golden hair kissed the dawn,

whose daughter became the morning.

Not in thunder,

but in soft return.

And I knew—

my mother never asked me

to be like her.

She just became the sky

so I could rise.

And far away,

in a garden held between mountain winds,

a daughter watched her mother vanish

into moonlight.

She looked up for years.

They say the moon is still her mother’s face.

And I—

I’ve spent nights

searching the sky for someone

who never really left.

All these stories,

I thought were myths.

But they were memories.

Not mine—

hers.

Each mother,

not a goddess,

but a woman

who made space

for a daughter to become.

And each daughter,

not a saviour,

but a mirror

realizing her reflection

was never just her own.

I used to think

my strength was new,

my softness invented.

But now I see—

it is ancient.

It is hers.

She fought with gentleness

so my fury could win.

She held back tears

so I could cry.

She stayed

so I could leave.

And when I speak,

my voice carries

a thousand women

whose stories I never asked for

but carry anyway.

I am my mother’s daughter.

And the more I learn,

the more I remember

what I never knew I knew.

And all of it came to me

not with thunder,

but on a Tuesday,

as we sat curled on the couch,

TV humming between us,

light flickering on her cheek.

She laughed at something on screen—

that laugh,

unmistakable and mine.

And in that moment,

without myth,

without gods,

I looked at her profile

and knew.

I am my mother’s daughter.

And I am in love

with that truth.

That I am the flowering myth

she always hoped would bloom.

-Bhavya Dakavaram