When I look at old photographs—
My mother in her youth and
Her mother in hers—
I see that the similarities are undeniable,
Carved into the zygomatic arches and
Coiffed in the same rich, brown locks—
The colour of cockroaches and chocolates and
Coffees and onyxes—
And as I brush my hair,
The mirror looks at me.
She's the face of a million ancestresses—
Of a history written in my blood and in my bones,
Within the acids and phospholipids of my cells—
Coalesced into a single instant,
A fleeting continuation.
My face has appeared before, has it not?
The though frightens and enthralls me:
That something so core to one's own being—
To their own selfhood—
Is perhaps never truly their own?
People speak of doppelgängers,
Figures with the copied visage of another,
And I am left to wonder
If I am but the doppelgänger of my ancestors.