my mother, medusa, never left the temple.Â
not really. i thought i always saw her there, on particularly bad nights when she would wake from dreams that gripped her with rough hands. or, often, she could not look straight at mirrors like a stranger was staring back. i learnt to get used to it, to chase away the nightmares and hoard mirrors in corners with the rest of her fears. i learnt that on good nights, my mother would hold me closer than the dreams could reach, and weâd fall into the morning together softly.Â
she would tell me stories, sometimes, of all the world and their heroes. who learnt to fly and hold the sun in their palms, who were stronger than a hundred men. heroes who would always win in the end. she told me of the gods and their fists, too. how they liked to take. to ruin. how they would hold onto every beautiful thing and break it. only on these nights would my motherâs hands shake. and iâd catch sight of that same temple reflecting in the gleam of her eyes again. my mother, back in her cage, back in the dark.
in the end, of all the stories, my mother could never tell her own.
