Motherly Love
Author’s Note: The mother-child relationship is complicated. I wanted to evoke the emotional rollercoaster experienced by the onlooker when witnessing “tough love”. I took inspiration from conversations I’ve heard throughout my life in the grocery markets, crossing the road, etc.
May contain triggering imagery.
“Why can’t you do anything right?” She yelled into the mirror at the young one. The young one made no such noise, but their eyes widened, tar spilling out. “Answer me!” She pushed again, but the young one refused to speak. She shoved them a little more, maybe she could force an answer this way. The young one refused, their face blotched with red.
“I…I…” the young one began, their breath rolling over speed bumps with each word.
“I…I…I…What?” She demanded again, “answer me!”
“I don’t know.” The young one whispered into the moist air, their eyes resting at the tip of their curled-up toes.
“You don’t know,” she shook her head, a smile creeping up the sides of her face. Her mouth filled with sinister laughter. She repeated herself again, this time her voice crescendoed, a pause interrupting each syllable, “You don’t know?”
The wind shrieked in pain, rattling the glass. Rain discharged at the window like bullets, shooting at them. Shattered, but not broken.
A moment of silence tore between the two. The young one held in her breath like a secret, eyes drowning in grease.
“This is because I love you,” she said.
The scrunched-up agony in their face screamed in pain, as the perpetual sound of the slap broke contact with their skin. Their face paused mid-yawn, tears draining from the river in their eyes. Their body bent against the sink in prayer position, arms curled up to their chest, fists clenched away from the twilight around them. Ossified fingers clutched their shoulder, digging their tiny knives into their skin. They wailed, crying Desdemona’s song, succumbing to the love their mother had for them.
