The sentence, “Amid the weight of her hands on my skin and the cruelty of the words she hurls, I cannot bring myself to hate my mother, for this is her first time living too,” cut straight through me. Because if I were given the grace of another birth, I would wish not to return as the daughter my mother dreamed of. I would wish not to be her child at all, just as I would wish she were not my birth mother—so that neither of us would have to carry this twisted shape of love again.
The sentence, “Amid the weight of her hands on my skin and the cruelty of the words she hurls, I cannot bring myself to hate my mother, for this is her first time living too,” cut straight through me. Because if I were given the grace of another birth, I would wish not to return as the daughter my mother dreamed of. I would wish not to be her child at all, just as I would wish she were not my birth mother—so that neither of us would have to carry this twisted shape of love again.