Lola

Bless those that have children who read
Their rooms are piling out with books filled with crinkled pages, and though they have never read your favorites, they do read constantly, constantly
You both have ink stuck to your eyes
Isn’t that strange, somehow? To have this thing that looks like you, yet has a mind of its own? Their flesh grew from yours, your blood runs through their veins, and your eyes have the same shape - yet you have no control over any move they make

Can you remember how you yourself sat, at nine years old, on a kitchen floor, with a stack of library books by your side, having read them all?
And now your Lola too, at nine years old, sits on a kitchen floor, with a stack of library books by her side, and none of the stories she learns are the same, but she too has read them all
And it’s almost like you lived twice, in a different body, in a different time
And you have no control over the words she will say despite them being spoken in your voice - or the letters that she writes, yet they’re written in your hand
Doesn’t it make you think of your own mother, who would at times remark, that your cheekbones were the same, and both your shoulders stretched out wide, and your hair got tangled up in clumps instead of curls?
Does it remind you of when you walked into a room, and your grandma called you by her daughter’s name?
And though both have long passed, you still get accused on the phone, for lying when you say you are not your mother, and sometimes your brother frowns upon seeing her pictures, and asks you when you took them
You have lived a thousand times before in them, and they will live on a thousand times in you
Trace all the faces of your ancestors, and stare back at Lola there