When I think of mistakes, I think of my mother. I think of pity. I think of some distant caged love, jailed in the dull piece of metal dancing between my fingers. A fraction of light twitched
like a dead spiders legs through the crack under the door. I clutched my gift like a diseased person would clutch their only antidote. It gathered heat and sweat for the soft curves of my palm. The silver had been spotted and rubbed away by the salt of my fingerprints. I traced the curve of her name repeatedly to the sound of the ocean in my head. My eggshell thin nails curved over letters like waves at the beach. All I have of her is the size of a quarter and shaped in a heart. A locket for lost love… how cliché. It seems to melt away and almost disappear in the hot curvature of my hand through the dusty light. For all I know, the only thing we share is the thick blood in our veins. For all I know, my picture lays, broken edged and wilted, under the weight of a new life. I can only hope I was her greatest mistake.