Problematic

I look at pictures of her several times a day. I search her face for answers. For a sign of where I went wrong. For a greater depth than I am capable of- grace and serenity. The ability to make someone happy. The lack of a compulsion to fight. She wants to be a librarian. One of my dearest friends wants to be a librarian. She's kind and she's happy. She knows religion. She settles into things gently. She wears her hair in beautiful braids. Are you like her? Is that what makes you more worthwhile? Are you more worthwhile? Is that even a concept? Can one person be more worthy than anyone else? Is the standard the ability to glow with happiness? To emanate peace? To curb ambitions? Am I truly less happy with myself or is it just that my mask bears imperfections? Am I just more foolish? Time will tell. Somehow he makes people foolish. I've only known one person to escape this, and I think it was in part my fault for driving her away. She's married now. Will you be marri...

My mother and I have never been close. For a little over a month she shambled around the house in a hospital gown. It was the only thing she was comfortable in because they still had tubes coming out of her from the hospital. Thick plastic making a nuisance of itself. Making her look like a very poor cyborg. Tubes that drain. Probably so that her body doesn't poison itself while trying to heal. Bodies can become angry. Bodies hold grudges against being tampered with. Bodies self-harm. She couldn't shower for the month so she complained, calmly, quietly, much less that she should be allowed, about how it bothered her that she could not wash her hair. That was the worst part. She would find ways to make her body feel a little cleaner, but there was no way to wash her hair. She couldn't move her body over the sink. She couldn't get the angry tubes wet. Her doctor recommended dry shampoo, but that would only have aggravated the situation with the build-up. She couldn...