BIRTHMARK SCARS

:V

Hereafter, the truth is, I'm terrified of getting it wrong and reducing her to caricature, one-dimensional figure in tragedy of my own making. She was so much more than just a mother, a wife, a woman defined by the roles she played. She was whirlwind of contradictions, capable of breathtaking tenderness one moment and cutting cruelty the next. Fierce protector who smothered and abandoned me. How do you capture that kind of complexity on page? How do you reconcile the woman who read me bedtime stories with the woman who packed her bags and left without word? The pen trembles in my hand, conduit for all the unresolved anger, guilt, and yearning that churn inside me. Violation beneath some unspoken agreement.

The goddamn pen. It shove there, innocently enough, sleek black instrument promising to transliterate the chaos in my head into something real. But the moment I try to wield it, it turns traitor. It slips, skitters, drags across the pristine page, leaving trail of inky failures. I want to write about her, about Mother, about the woman who was both the anchor and the storm in my life, but the words are like frightened birds, fluttering just out of reach. They circle me, teasing snippets memory; scent of her lavender perfume, the way she hummed off-key while cooking, the steel in her eyes when she was angry, but refuse to land, to be captured and pinned down.

"They're just scars now," I tell myself, trying to convince the voice inside. Dead of night silence screams loudest. What they don't see is the internal battlefield those scars represent. My mother's words eroding my confidence and sculpt me into person that I didn't recognize. "Are they healing?" polite inquiry, meant to be reassuring, I suppose. But it's question that cuts deeper than any blade ever did. It bypasses the pain, the desperation, the reasons behind the markings. They don't want to know about the arguments through the house, the constant pressure to be someone I wasn't, the feeling of never being good enough in mother's eyes. They don't want to hear how her words, sharp and precise.

It's ironic, really. I wear these stories on my skin; roadmap of my personal hell, but I'm expected to present them as nothing more than blemishes, memoir for past left forgotten. And maybe that's what they are now—faded. The scars might fade, but part of me is permanently changed. I catch myself in reflections and see stranger looking back: someone wary, guarded, and distrustful. Some doors, once closed, can never be reopened

Looking back, I know she loved me, or at least, I think she did. But it was never the warm of kind you read about in books. It was love with teeth, sharp and demanding, always testing the boundaries. Like something she had to do, not something she felt. "Why do you always make things so difficult?" That simple phrase become a scar deeper than any physical wound. Mother.. Sadness? Anger? It's hard to untangle.

I recall her voice, rotten hum that grasp through floorboards and into my bones, but it was never directed at me. I remember her watching me, but I never felt like she really saw me. And that singing, if it was real, it was like secret language, something I wasn't meant to understand. My mother figure, always distant, like shadow moving through the house. Her eyes seems to see through me, not to me, as if I were just pane of glass revealing something far more sinister on the other side. I try to remember what she was like, to put the pieces together and understand who she was, but the memories are blurry and faded. I see flashes: her hands, her long hair, the way she would stare out the window for hours. Was I loved? Was I even seen? I think I notice tenderness in her eyes, but it fades away before I can grasp it. Perhaps she was just lost in her own thoughts, in world where I could never belong.

The deeper I scour, the more I fear what I will exhume. Was my mother trapped, unhappy in her own life with her dreams and hopes buried deep inside? Or was she the one who created this mess of feelings that carefully planting the seeds on worries and doubts? The memories I have are broken and confusing, offering no real answers. I just see a woman I really wanted to love, but whose actions often made me feel lost and alone. Perhaps the peace I seek never existed, perhaps it was simply mirage that lustre in the distance, cruel trick of light. I must delve into childhood's secrets that rootle around pain, and truly comprehend my mother, even if it tough.

Shovels on memory scrape against the hard-earth childhood dig attempts to sheathe buried frost of the past. But instead of jewel, I'm hoping to find just one warm memory; one good moment that doesn't leave a scar. I'm seeking through huge field, knowing that everyone around me—everyone I've ever known has their own secret fields, with their graveyard. That awareness of everyone else's hidden inner world is overwhelming. But it's the idea of my mother that really keeps me digging. Mother... the word itself should meant to cradle heart in lullabs, but lingers with truths left unsaid.

CW/TW: This channel may include discussions that some audience might find distressing or triggering. Topics may encompass; burial imagery, mother issues, violence, references to blood, scars, and surgical procedures. Please proceed with caution if these topics are sensitive for you.