MAY GARNER

Bloodlines & Heirlooms

Shame doesn’t arrive loudly.
It slips in through bloodlines,
through warnings passed like heirlooms.

My mother taught me
how to make myself smaller
without using the word.

My grandmother perfected the art
of swallowing whole storms
and calling it strength.

We didn’t name it shame.
We called it survival.

But survival leaves residue.
It lives in the jaw,
the shoulders,
the way we brace for impact
that never comes –
until it does.

I am learning
to set down what was never mine.
Learning that endurance
is not the same as worth.

Some legacies deserve interruption.

May Garner is an author and poet residing in rural Ohio. She has been writing for nearly fifteen years and has been sharing her writing online for over a decade. She is the author of two poetry collections, Withered Rising (2023) and Melancholic Muse (2025). Her work has appeared in Querencia Press, Cozy Ink Press, Arcana Poetry Press, Livina Press, Speckled Trout Review, among others. Find her work on Instagram (@crimson.hands).