I grew up wearing stories that didn’t fit—
hand-me-down myths,
fraying at the seams,
patched too many times
to keep the cold out.
My mother told me tales
she no longer believed in.
I listened anyway,
collecting names of dead heroes
like heirlooms,
like they might protect me
from becoming
one of the women who swallowed
their own endings.
We fight over everything:
salt in the daal,
how tightly to seal leftovers,
how much of the past
should be spoken out loud.
She asks questions
the way her mother did—
not expecting answers,
only hoping I’m still listening.
I answer in half-truths,
stitched in softness,
because truth in our house
was always served in teaspoons,
never whole.
I say I don’t remember much.
But my body holds every slammed door,
every word that never made it past a sigh.
Memory clings like turmeric
to Tupperware lids—
no matter how many times you scrub it,
it stays.
They say the past softens with time—
but mine learned to ferment.
It lives in sealed jars at the back of the fridge,
in leftovers we never eat
but never throw away.
It sharpens in quiet moments,
ripens in silence,
waits in the dark
for the right night to be remembered.
Nothing really left.
It just changed shape.
Learned new languages.
Moved into the cracks
of our living room tiles,
curled inside lullabies
I never finished singing.
I didn’t inherit her silence,
but I carry its echo—
pressed into playlists,
held in pauses.
I play them on loop,
woven into bedtime rituals
I never speak of—
whispers in a language
older than my voice.
No name—just ache,
like memory etched in marrow,
passed down in blood—
not taught, just known.
—Noor ul Taba