Shards of the Same Shattered Mirror

• Poetry

								
I sit there, my room torn to shreds. There’s glass on the floor and my mirror is shattered, reflecting a thousand tiny versions of my tear-streaked face. My mattress is flipped, and my shelves are hollow, riddled with the holes left by the smashing of a hammer. My mouth fills with the salty taste of my tears, cascading down my cheeks as your screams echo in my mind. "I’m leaving!" you shouted. Small frustrations had erupted into a volcanic rage.

As I sit there on the floor I evaluate the bruises on my legs as I try to wrap my head around what just happened. My mother. Each fight followed the same pattern—things thrown and broken, words slashed like knives, promises of departure shouted into the storm of our emotions. Then, just silence. No goodbye, only an absence louder than any scream or shout could ever be. Surrounded by them, yet profoundly alone. 

I remember my childhood as a battle between my mother. I hated her. Hated her for the rage she produced, hated her for her anger that was hereditary to me. I would throw things too, and leave the house when I was mad. Say the most evil things and have no remorse for any of it. I was born into an abundance of inherited sadness. Love and hatred tangled so tightly together, as if the poison tasted sweet. We would rather swallow ourselves whole than relinquish our aches and pains. At night, we tore each other apart, but by morning, the wounds were miraculously healed, as if the bruises, cuts, and tears were mere tricks of the light. 

But I was just twelve, navigating life for the first time, oblivious to the fact that she was doing the same. Growing up, I failed to realize it was her first time living too. My mother’s anger still seeps into my chest today, but intertwined with it was her love, and the realization that she was so much better than her worst moments. A love that she showed in the small things, even if I often overlooked them.

I remember watching her collect shells on the beach, her eyes lighting up at the beauty she found in each one. She would fill a cup with sand every time we went to remember the memory. She loved sunsets and flowers, and sea glass, marveling at the way the ocean turned glass to sand. She still has all my elementary school projects till this day. And I remember her as someone who would overwater plants because she didn't know how to stop giving. She wouldn't mind the hour drive to practice every day, because she believed that one day I would be great. She believed everything she did for me and my siblings would be worth it, even though the struggle was hard. In those moments, she was more than her rage; she was someone finding magic in the mundane.

Now, looking back, I see her for who she truly is: a mother, struggling through her firsts, just like me. The love and hatred, the beauty and the rage—they are all parts of her, parts of us. We are shards of the same shattered mirror, reflecting each other's pain and joy.

And in that realization, I find a strange, bittersweet comfort. We are not perfect, but we are learning, stumbling through life together, trying to make sense of our inherited sadness and hard-won joys. And maybe, just maybe, we will find a way to piece together our broken shards into something whole, something beautiful, something that is undeniably us.
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