Cords

They cut the umbilical cord on the day you were born.
Veins to lungs swelled.
A first breath.

In that moment of one severed connection, five million tendon-like

cords moved from subconscious to conscious, already coiled tightly
into the spirals of DNA. Entwining mine to yours.  

They never told me there would be a cord indelibly woven 
into the deepest parts of my being, into every fiber and cell.

A cord that would cause me to willingly lay my head on the
guillotine if it meant that you were OK...lay every vein wide
open and pour myself into earth if it meant that you were safe.

They didn’t say it but it happened all the same. 

There’s no manual for that. For the loss of self preservation that
comes when they cut that cord, permanently embedding the immutable
one into your psyche. It’s made of the deepest yearnings infused with dread.
A cord pulling one taught at the smallest of threats. 

The dust of cords from my ancestors, sifts in between all of that fiber.
Their heartstrings tied to mine through stories and cellular imprint.
Ligaments tying past to future. 

I feel my mother’s blood in my veins today, more acutely than ever as
I stack stones in this garden she never saw. Cords woven tightly. Her
feet walking the path as I look down at my own. 

There were dark summer nights I drove through these mountains,
windows down,music blaring. My being at war with circumstance.
I felt I had lost my identity in those hair-blowing-wild, bass-thumping
moments. Feeling that urge to just keep driving. 

But instead of slipping gracelessly into another life, driving away in the dark,
that cord pulled me home. It seemed a small tug at times. A twinge. But its
not a cotton thread. It’s a fucking pipeline that can’t be severed. It's carbon
and oxygen.It’s an ocean. A universe. If you were at the other end,
there was no other reality that could exist without you. Ever. 

On this birthday of my now-gone mother, I feel my lifeblood. My lineage.
My roots. They are yours as well. Every breathe inundated with tendrils of
ancestral code not to be unraveled.