I didn't ask for my conception — Iyana Hill Solo Show

I didn't ask for my conception — Iyana Hill Solo Show

A poem written on a red-orange painted shape.

Truly no one teaches us to be daughters 

I didn’t ask for my conception 

                  but I exist.

 

I exist as the product of my parents’ love and God’s purpose

I exist as the daughter of Sandra and Robert

I exist as the daughter of Sandra Marie. I am a part of my mother’s garden. 

I am the lineage of her and the rest of the daughters who didn’t ask to become one, who later became mothers. 

No one teaches us to be daughters, but we are able to be shown ways in which we would like to be mothers.

Six different family photos on top of a red-orange painted shape.
Two color photos on top of a red-orange painted shape: the one of the left features an older black woman wearing white, sitting in a garden holding two pictures. The one of the right depicts Iyana and the older woman wearing white, sitting next to a gravestone and holding a stone with her sister’s picture and epitaph. There is writing on the right side of the right picture

And if there was one person that I could say even taught me, 

it would be the person who had to learn how to be a daughter with me-my sister. 

From the birth of me until the ascendence of her, 

we existed as daughters to the same people together in the physical realm. 

Just as she was a daughter before me, I am still my mother’s daughter after she left earth. 

I had to learn to show up as a daughter in another way, in a way I never knew existed 

at the hands of grief and loss and the life that still went on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Growing pains and growing joys-they’re simultaneous.

There are two color photos on top of a red-orange painted shape: the one of the left shows Iyana dressed in white sitting on a garden fountain with two little black girls next to her. The one on the right shows the little girls dressed in white standing in front of flowers with writing on the left girl’s dress.
There is a color photo on top of a red-orange painted shape: the photo shows Iyana dressed in white sitting in the woods holding a stone with her sister’s picture and epitaph. To the right of the photo is a poem.

“I can’t wait to tell my children about you/About the days where we had no choice but to be outside as long as the sun could kiss us/About the skipping rocks and how I could never get past your five/The talent shows in grandma’s living room where we took turns being each other’s back-up singers/Tell them about the many colors of you, or should I say your hair/About an aura unmatched, an energy so special I can’t even give its essence justice/If my children asked me to describe you in one word I’ll say Divine/Cause there’s no way you weren’t heaven sent. And every time I’m asked who’s my favorite superhero, I’ll say you. You are the epitome of strength. I’ll tell them how you protected me for as long as I can remember From childish nightmares and thunderstorms to my first car accident/although your frail bones could barely move at that point and lupus was literally sucking the life out of you, your adrenaline came through like you always do/Tell them how it was my honor to spend almost every day of my life with you until the end of yours/How I miss being in your presence and how I constantly find new reminders of your existence when I need it the most/While I can only hope that my children will not have to lose a sibling a young age/To have to come up to the words of an obituary/To feel the very moment their sister left this earth/Or for their last promise to be to love their brother enough for the both of them/I pray to God he puts a love in them that transcends their earthly self/And through me instilling the appreciation of a sibling while they can still have a conversation/And while everything in me wishes you can be here in the physical while I raise my babies, I know that you will be the best guardian angel to them that I could ever ask for/And for that I thank you. I can’t wait to tell my children about you."

 

Who I am, where I’ve been, and who I am becoming is a part of my journey as a daughter. 

And as I grow I memorialize the version of me that got left behind 

while trying to hold on to some of the essences of adolescence and innocence. 

I offer grace to myself, I utter grace to my mother, I offer grace to her mother and so on. 

I pray my daughters can do the same for me.

Two color photos on top of a red-orange painted shape: the one on the left show Iyana dressed in white sitting on a rock in a creek. The one on the right show Iyana standing in the creek with the woods in the background.
A red-orange painted box with dozens of photos decorating the box and six framed photos and flowers on top forming an altar. There are flowers on a ledge behind the framed photos and a letter in the middle.

 

 

To the daughters who came before me, the daughters that exist with me, the daughters come from the seed of my blossom 

I know you didn’t ask for your conception.

A letter between framed photos and flowers on a red-orange box.
A red-orange box with seven vases filled with flowers. The box has petals all over it.
A letter with petals and vases surrounding it on a red-orange box.
A red-orange box with a notebook and pen and text up top that says, “Write a letter to yourself, your mother, or your future daughter."
A red-orange box with several family photos on its front face.
Arris' Cohen looking at Iyana's artwork.