Maid of the Mist

The papers rustle in our hands,
signatures trembling like leaves in wind.
A key glints in the sunlight—
can it really be ours?
Our breath catches,
a river pulling fast, then slow,
carrying us toward
this beginning.

The walls of my apartment hum with memory:
the uneven floors,
the way sunlight slides across the window each October,
the sound of my sister’s laugh echoing
down the narrow hallway.
It is not flawless,
but it has been a nest—
our place since 2019,
with Dad’s steady footsteps grounding us.

Before this:
a creaking house in the same village,
where dinners steamed in the kitchen,
where my mother’s voice lingered in corners.
Before that:
a hotter sun,
dust rising in Haiti,
a first home I hold in fragments—
shadows more than pictures.

This village has carried me since eight,
but it has also carried silence,
the sting of eyes that linger too long,
the sudden flash of sirens behind me.
White picket fences,
white faces,
questions unspoken but heavy.
I am ready to leave the weight of it,
to walk streets
where faces shift in tone and story,
where I can breathe unmeasured.

Niagara waits—
I can still hear our voices years ago,
rising above the roar of the falls,
mist cooling our cheeks
before we fractured into two households.

Now, with our names inked on paper,
my twin and I return,
this time to stay.
Our own foundation.
Our own roof.
Our third home,
our chosen home.

The heart stirs,
caught between rooms I must release
and rooms I have yet to fill.
But hope stands at the door,
arms wide,
calling me forward.

Goodbye, Haiti—
your fragments keep me rooted.
Goodbye, East Aurora—
your streets carved my story,
even when they cut deep.
Hello, Niagara—
where water never stops moving,
where the roar becomes a promise
to keep going.