Silver

This is about breaking generational expectations/trying to evade 'deserved' self-hatred.

In the eve, you trace the mirror's cruelty—
how it mocks the betrayed figure,
the external praise already vanished.

Yet it was never there, the way you wanted.
The time you covet was never satisfactory;
tendrils were crow-dark, not goldfinch.

The wandering, grey eye targets mine:
a sick mix of disapproval and glee
over any shred of family likeness.

The eye, all-seeing, monitored me
more closely than I ever had,
feeding into the delusion we

are the same.

There are things I’m not supposed
to point out.

We all remember my skeletal hands,
lean and pale chicken legs,
glass-shard collarbones.

She wasn’t good enough then.

Now, with hourglass waist,
pear-rounded thighs,
collarbones only peering.

She’s not good enough now.

Grey platitudes ring hollow
after your seed of recognition planted
itself in the cherry kernel pit.

Tap, tap, tap.
Tap, tap, tap.
Onto the murky-shine crystal.

Children and husband of your habits
bounce off the dull, unpolished silver.

Gold.
Fall-leaf brown.
Gold, gleaming eyes.

The silver is not my inheritance.