Page 31 - TheBridge_Vol16

PATERNITY

Elizabeth Brady

my last name is brady.
it roughly translates to
spirited,
though my father says it’s closer to
cunning.
it all makes sense, after all,
i come from a long line of
tricksters and
earth shakers.
but somehow i can’t
seem to
shake the ghost
of a thousand ancestors,
a boundless line stretching
into a past
that i am meant to
uphold.

but i am destined to
surrender the name,
break the chain,
sacrifice a sliver of my identity
and embrace an unfamiliar one.
i am destined to
conceive and bear a child
whose name will not resemble my own.

my heart is already broken.
so is my claddagh ring.

Vol. XVI | 19