Legacies - Munaza Naseer

Me and my sister

Our parts make a jigsaw

She's more like my father

While I look for something common

And see only a shared name

But we both have business in our blood

There's parts, there's fractions

Of a legacy built through two generations

She has his way with people

She has his work ethic

I have his ideas, his precision

Between the two of us we carry him

We carry his warmth just like

we carry his frost

She gets this selfless part from him

that I could never be

I just hope it serves her better

Like him she loves too much

Like with him it doesn't end well

I have my father's mood

Changing hues like flipping through

A child's playbook

I have his habit of detachment

His need for order.

Like him I'm blind to everything but the flaws

My sister blind to everything but the light

We're always extremes and never midway

We both share his anxious mind

His racing heart

We're both hot rage in our own ways

We're both impulsive decisions

And broken relations

There's not much you can do about legacies

They show up in desperate ways

They have a need for belonging

A thirst for holding on

And the only way you find balance is

Being the glue and putting together the jigsaw

The only way you live is

Hoping, against reason, the picture

doesn't turn out ugly