The thyroid resides within
the throat chakra, to help us
speak our truth. My mother
could not speak her truth,
she could only yell criticism
at me, and I could not speak
at all. The lump in my throat
became a part of me.
At eighteen, nurses placed
sandbags on my shoulders
as a scanner revealed
my thyroid was inflamed.
Years later, the lump
in my mother’s throat
turned out to be cancer.
The surgeon’s scalpel cut
into her thyroid and sliced her
salivary glands. From then on,
my mother—already soured on life—
had to leave the room if she saw
someone slice a lemon.
Many decades later,
my thyroid slowed down.
The rogue gland took over
my exhausted body, and left me
with my own scars. A single gland,
shaped like a butterfly, determines
our growth. I watched my mother
shrink to a caricature of a woman,
while I—with my diminished eyebrows
altered pigments, and facial scar—
live with this toxic inheritance.
Sometimes I feel myself shrinking,
then I remember that I am not my mother.
My butterfly is sustained by a nectar cocktail
of modern medicine and ancient wisdom,
and I am trying—against all odds—
to speak my truth.