In the dusted, chipped, desilvered face of a reflection

I saw the familiar lines of worry,

And the fretting heartache that lapped at her clouded irises.

And she, troubled, stared as I stared,

A heavy fog pressing on already dauled features.

Oh the weight.

And oh yet the airy consolation!

Yes, there was emptiness in those eyes;

Emptiness that groaned within the realization that you had gone.

But oh finally the quiet and welcomed emptiness!

Emptiness without your memories to lament

Threnodiously through the scoured halls of my mind.

Oh woe to emptiness!

And yet praise to the immeasurable freedom too!

How it thunderously crept in with the small recollection of that night:

Waking in the twilight hours next to you,

Wondering what you, soundlessly slumbering, dreamt, and

Matter-of-factly realizing that

I

   Did

      Not

         Care.

And what quiet pleasure was taken in forgetting your laugh.

What simple joy was found in losing the lines of your face.

How splendid to close my eyes and see nothing of note in place of the eyes,

Those that once bored holes in my foundation.

I traced the lines of her glass face,

Smoothing them away with a brush of my cotton fingers.

And her emptiness turned to a quiet sense of triumph.

Look how happy now; look how fulfilled. Look how you’ve thrived.

All flourishing where once hollow halls burned raw

With the chemical of deception.

I thought I saw my mother today.

In the dusted, chipped, desilvered face of a reflection

I saw Familiar there, in my adopted worry,

And the fretting heartache that lapped at my clouded eyes.

And I, troubled with my own sordid past, stared at what I would become;

Stared through the dusty and chipped and desilvered face of a mirror that flayed my future

Should I leave a heavy fog to press on already wilting features.

Oh mothers, how daughters do become you.