Something that touched my heart after a long, long time. Salute to Atwood for these beautiful words. Brought tears to my eyes.
Your children
cut their hands … by Margaret
Atwood
by reaching through the mirror
where the beloved one was hiding.
You weren’t expecting this:
you thought they wanted happiness,
not laceration.
You thought the happiness
would appear simply, without effort
or any kind of work,
like a bird call
or a pathside flower
or a school of silvery fish
but now they’ve cut themselves
on love, and cry in secret,
and your own hands go numb
because there’s nothing you can do,
because you didn’t tell them not to
because you didn’t think
you needed to
and now there’s all this broken glass
and your children stand red-handed
still clutching at moons and echoes
and emptiness and shadow,
the way you did.
by reaching through the mirror
where the beloved one was hiding.
You weren’t expecting this:
you thought they wanted happiness,
not laceration.
You thought the happiness
would appear simply, without effort
or any kind of work,
like a bird call
or a pathside flower
or a school of silvery fish
but now they’ve cut themselves
on love, and cry in secret,
and your own hands go numb
because there’s nothing you can do,
because you didn’t tell them not to
because you didn’t think
you needed to
and now there’s all this broken glass
and your children stand red-handed
still clutching at moons and echoes
and emptiness and shadow,
the way you did.
