My Mother is an Artist

My mother is an artist.

I am my mothers cracked and warped reflection in the mirror. She looks at me, unaware that it is not herself that she is watching.

I stare back. I try to mimic her movements, her affect, her disposition of the moment, but I am delayed at times, and she strikes the mirror and cracks it again, and again I am distorted. One day I will not look like her.

My sister is a painting. She hangs across from me. She bears my mother's signature in the corner of her frame. You almost cannot see it, unless you know what it looks like, and then it's obvious. Every brushstroke is by my mother's hand. Our father died young--he never saw the portrait.

My brother is a fountain. He is stoic and strong, and yet somehow as fluid as the waters passing over his hands. My mother has not finished sculpting him--he is a difficult project. He will not shape to her will. Sometimes, in the right lighting, he will pretend to be what she wants, but really he is too good, and too wise. He will never bear her mark in anyway that matters.

If I could, I would crawl out of my glass and pull him out of the stone, bring him out to the mountains, and let him breathe. But I am afraid of cutting myself on the cracks.

There are times where my sisters paint begins to flake, but beneath it is the underpainting, and beneath that is the sketch. And beneath that, who knows. We are afraid to look.

My mother is an artist