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A Thousand Mirrors

By Laura Dawson

I’ve been raped by men and women

By my mother, father, strangers and friends.

I’ve been impregnated by their dreams and desires,

Their self-loathings and inadequacies.

I nurtured their fears

And fed their misgivings with my soul.

When my womb became heavy with their wants and desires

My body birthed their bloody, bastard child

And I named him Self Hatred

For he represented all that I

Could never be.

He was carved from marble:

Beautiful, hardened.

Perfectly proportioned – the mirror image

Of God.

Bastard Child

I named him Resentment

For he enjoyed all the pleasures

I was denied.

Full of love, carefree.

A child at heart, roaming the fields of wildflowers

Basking in the sun

And watching his dandelion wishes dance away with the breeze.

The Bastard Child!

I named her shame

Because she could climb onto the bathroom counter

And look into the mirror.

Those energy efficient, halogen lights

Had nothing on the sparkle in her eye.

Innocence bubbled out as laughter,

And joy in her star-lit grin.

That Bastard Child!

I named her disappointment

Because she was a book with empty pages

Waiting to be written on.

Never having been told no,

She believed she could be anything.

Their bastard child!

I have told their child that he

Wasn’t worth a second glance,

That he wasn’t what anyone wanted.

I told their child to grow up,

That there is no Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, or Easter Bunny.

That wishes are silly and don’t come true.

I told their child to stop looking in the mirror.

Told her that her laughter sounded stupid,

And her smile wasn’t big enough.

I told their child that she didn’t have anything

Worth writing down and

That girls can’t be

Astronauts, carpenters, or president.

And if I could go back –

I would plaster the fractures of their broken dreams

With words of adoration and healing.

I would give them the wings of angels,

Sewn back to the sinews from which they were severed

So they could lift themselves from this desolate earth

The one from which they were birthed

So they could see through the eyes of God.

But I have nursed their bastard child for 24 years.

And they never told me that they named their child,

Me.

Laura, from the Latin name Laurus.

Meaning laurel.

Favorable because it was the leaves of the Laurel tree

that were wound into wreaths

and worn on the heads after victory.

Today, I will tell their child,

That she is a daughter of the universe,

No less than the stars or the trees.

That her body is a temple,

But if she wants to see God,

I will surround her with a thousand mirrors

And tell her to open her eyes.

Today, I will tell their child

That she is free.