Someday
the nature-nurture people will clone you. They will place new you in the
perfect home. They will prepare your new mother for everything. She will not
twist your arm when you don’t respond to your name. She will have the best
behaviour therapists on speed dial. She will have no need to escape into blogs
or happier shorelines in her mind. She will never be surprised. She will know when
to ask you sweetly to use your fork and when to join you on the chair in praise
to Bob the Tomato. She'll never mistake your anxious laughs for defiance, your
tipping chairs for hate. She will not bite her arms into Os for remorse or bang
her head on door frames. She will never weep beside your bed or beg for mercy.
Each night she’ll be debriefed while her team rubs out her feet, her back, her
ready smile. She will know this is only an experiment.
3 comments:
Some things are impossible to know, but we can't help asking.
I like the pacing, the way you vary the sentence length. The reference to Bob the Tomato and the two following sentences are strong points, to my mind. The one phrase that felt a bit tired was "have... on speed dial."
I really like this.
Nice. I like! And I was glad for the author's self-compassion, 'her team'.. I might have cried otherwise. And I Love Bob the tomato!
My only stumble was in going from your bed, to, beg for mercy. I wonder if pray or plead might work better(??).
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