When I look at my face in pictures
I don’t see the makeup
The hair
The earrings
The smile
I see the eyes.
The big, luminous eyes.
Pained, unsure, glassy, innocent, questioning eyes.
They speak the saddest truths.
The truths I cannot say
And my heart cannot hold.
The truths that make me break
Standing
That I loved you with every fiber of my being
But we lacked passion
Because you never pushed back, never fought for yourself, for me.
That I envied your own brother for your attention
That sometimes when you spoke, it was like you didn’t see me.
That your words were so careless, it was like the world could have ended, I would have gone with it,
And you would have shrugged.
That you will never make me happy, because you hold nothing dear
That I find happiness so fragile and precious
And you live in a black void that smiles its oily smiles.
That as much as I hate my mother
Her cruelty, her ignorance and irresponsibility
I feel her pain. I know her pain.
I understand it. Even acknowledge its rightness.
It runs in my veins.
And as much I love you father dear, for your guilt-stricken machinations
And good intentions,
My mother and I are much more alike than you and I, I’m afraid.
She’s my mirror. And no matter how far I run, I turn around and see her, see me.
That for all my romantic notions, and perseverance of love
It has hid from me, run from me, rejected me
And so I learned the harder side of human emotions
The softer ones just out of my reach
My need has grown, and with it, love’s appearance has gone from sporadic to never.
That for all my need to save the world.
It’s a selfish, self-aggrandizing notion that I have done nothing to act upon.
Save the world?
Maybe I should save myself first.
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