The Day I Became a Bookmark in My Own Story

A poem-story for anyone who’s ever been “married off” to a future they didn’t RSVP to

The Flight 30.09.2023, 10:45 p.m.

The sky was a cracked eggshell— yolk bleeding over the runway. I carried a suitcase labeled “maybe” and a mother-sentence tucked under my tongue: “Keep your eyes open for opportunities out there.” The audacious girl in seat 23A traded my shadow for a passport stamp. The rational lady in 23B held my shadow’s funeral at 30,000 feet. Between them, I learned how to breathe in two time zones at once.

The Wave

Behind the glass, she waved. Not goodbye— goodbye-to-who-you-were-5-seconds-ago. Her palm was the last page of a book I didn’t know was ending. I thought I’d lost her. Really, I’d lost the me that only fit in her margins.

The Tradition

They called it “married off.” A typical I thought Sounded like a courier service— “We’ll deliver your daughter to destiny by Tuesday.” Gave me a room with echoes for wallpaper. Told me “this is home now” while the locks clicked legacy behind me. I stared at the ‘ring’— a tiny handcuff forged from my parents’ what-if. Joseph in me said: “Store grain. Build.” Esau in me said: “Trade birthright. Run.” Eva in me said: “Rewrite the recipe. Lentils are boring.”

The Syllabus

Opportunities didn’t knock. They slid under my door like rogue postcards: As strangers who became flatmates, As closed doors that forced you to pick the lock to your own skill, As lonely evenings that taught you you’re good company. Every detour was a chapter my mother’s sentence had already footnoted. I left with a suitcase; came back carrying a syllabus written by the world. A soul annotated by loneliness.

The Mirror

One night the bulb flickered— Morse code from the universe’s IT department. In the strobe, I saw her: Eva. Not Joseph. Not Esau. Just a woman holding a pen like a plane ticket, drawing borders around “here be opportunities” and coloring them mine.

The Epilogue

I Keep Erasing. Nostalgia is a thank-you note to the girl who boarded without a roadmap— because she became the map. Tradition is a door. I am the hinge that learned to swing both ways. Religion is the salt. Culture is the pepper. I am the recipe that tastes like leave, leap, linger. And her? She’s still waving— but now it’s through me, not at me. Every time I open my eyes in a new room, I finish her sentence: “Keep your eyes open…” I do. I am the opportunity now.