I carry all your fear with me,

although my mother says it isn’t much.
 
I don’t even know your name,
just that you were blamed
 
for dying too young, for becoming a folk tale
to scare little children like me.
 
How can I write this story I don’t know?
 
Except I do: my mother’s fear
is that I will become you.
 
Unnamed. Dead. Someone’s sister,
cousin twice removed,
 
waiting on a grace that never came. 
You are the ghost of my becoming,
 
nameless blood, a tale of warning.