She lays there, a mirror, with her eyes like closed pistachios. I sip in her sweet breathe and try not to flinch, patient for her coos in between dreams. Behind my eyes, I play a scene back from 6 years ago; sitting at my mothers kitchen table with tears streaming down my face, I told her “you will never be the mom I needed.” I meant it.

And now holding _her_, I wear my mothers skin. I see through foreign lenses, and feel what she felt. She must have felt it too, at only 23. And I, looking back up at her, a rashy sponge, knew that she was scared. And now I’ve ridden on the ferris wheel for 30 whole years, but I’m scared too. I wonder if _she_ knows it. Maybe. Either way, I feel the ache, the drumming pain that’s lived inside my stomach,chest,and brainwaves all these years, the knot- I feel it loosen. Then it settles and sits quietly, I open up the door for it. And then, it leaves.