We Couldn’t Run Further than the Shadows that Fell

The left of my reflection is my right.

The right of my reflection is my left.

Everything is backwards.

Words are screamed down generations. Arguments outlive corporeal presences, like miserable traditions. The wraiths of  unfocused anger, never resolved, left to take momentary host and battle with similarly bodiless broyges’. Left like old shoes when we die. Just as wanted, but not as easily disposed of.

The words aren’t mine.

I’ve heard them before. From my mother to my father. From my father to my mother.

They seem as inevitable and inherited as the colour of my eyes.

I hear them split across relationships and genders and hundreds of years.

Where did they start?
I feel them spit out of my mouth.
My mother’s words. Her father’s words. All of our grandparent’s words.
They are heavy and jagged and ill-chosen and couldn’t be chosen better. Nothing this shape should fly so well. But they do. And every one of them lands where it was supposed to.
I know because I can see. I can feel.
Left side is my right.

I can see where they land. I can see it on me. I know because they land on me. They are meant for me. They are reflected from me. All these years later.

They taste sweet. Across my lips. The burn of the tepid thick liquid in my throat. In my gut. The prickle in my ears.  I feel like I am right again and the words, they feel good coming out. Hitting wincing skin. She plays the role. I play mine. We are children. We are our parents. We continue. This will continue.

Long after we are dead.

Words shorn of meaning, retaining only their interpretation.  

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

You don’t even know the words, do you?

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

You just know how good it feels.

I’m sorry.

How good it feels to know you are right.