Bad Fruit

by Ella King

Why should I give everyone what they want?

Why look at what’s hurting you?

But my instincts are elusive. If choosing is a muscle, mine has atrophied from disuse and although I keep practicing, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it.

He was like this as a child. Whenever Mama started shouting at Julia or screamed at him for not getting an A, he’d leave instantly, go out if he could, or pull a duvet around his ears, retreat into a numb, blank space.

Every minute of my life is people saying, “I love you,” “I promise,” and it never means anything except that they want something. “I’m not naive. Why are you helping me?”

“Our entire visual history of motherhood is idealized. That chubby baby is God. He’s perfect, so his mother can be perfect. But what about real children, real mothers? There are no paintings of mothers throwing things at their children or crashing cars with their children inside.”

And then I realize lying doesn’t mean to Mama what it does to other people. In the shocking place of open shut, open shut, lies are comfort, lies are salvation, lies are truth.

will she let me know her or just a version of her?