“It’s all your fault,” her mother spat,
the words curling like smoke
burning holes through the film
as the reel of her life sputtered,
frames melting, memories blistered.

“Are you ashamed?” she asked him once,
but the answer was a rooftop of ravens,
black and fat with fury,
their wings heavy with arguments
that scattered like dandelion seeds
on a storm-bitten wind.

He adored her—or so she thought—
until his chats told otherwise.
Still, he guarded her like stained glass,
jealous of each gaze that lingered,
each stranger who feasted
on her church-window eyes,
shards of color sharp enough to cut.

Her mother’s lies
coiled in her throat,
a banquet of bitterness
she could never swallow.
She needed a scapegoat,
an alibi for the twin
flickering inside her:
one a saint of silken dreams,
the other a sinner
digging graves for every tomorrow.

Why is it never enough?
Not the apology, not the tears,
not the hollow space where love
once curled its soft animal body.

She punches the mirror,
and it blossoms like her pain—
a thousand fractured faces staring back,
none of them hers.
Her reflection weeps
as she stands alone,
the only guest
at a feast of glass.