Mirror Me

by Lisa Williamson Rosenberg

Writing the f-bomb is nowhere near as cathartic as shouting it would be.

destroying the small parts of herself that no one could see unless they really looked.

I stare at the word “Black” as an exercise to see what comes.

I wanted to become a new version of myself that included my Black side.

Being brown in my family meant that I was at risk of being separated from them, at the very least visually, since I did not match.

“I want people to know you’re mine,” she told me. “People can’t see it the way they can with your brother.” In other words, her every gesture was meant to claim me, to challenge others to try, just try to question our bond.

in real life, you are not Black and I’m not white. We’re just people, a boy and his mother who love each other.”

Her rare embraces felt cavernous and cold. Her fond gazes were replaced by perfunctory glances. This brought on a brand-new state of existential crisis for an adoptee like me, but also came with a silver lining.

“Of all people, you cannot get away with being violent.” She tapped my arm. It took a moment to register that she was referring to my color. It was the first and only lesson my mother would teach me about race as it concerned me, as opposed to abstract, anonymous “Black kids.” If I were violent, I’d be one of them, at least in my mother’s eyes.

“Apple Pear, Peachy Pie. He’s too damn full of himself. If it weren’t for you, Pretty Boy, I’d have done him in by now.”

We defy terminology. We are everything.

figured out how to make everyone but himself happy.”

. . . but I would just like to meet him. To learn what he is like. Besides, he might have questions. I think he should at least know something about . . .

Jealousy, resentment, frustration—these emotions have always been my lifeblood, fueling my interventions when I couldn’t tolerate plain old observation.

Like Dorothy, I’d always had the power, I just had to learn it for myself.)

There is nothing I cannot forgive now that I am this close to being whole.

Here’s the thing about a comeuppance: if properly delivered, it can result in redemption.