“Through the Blue Glass”
“We've been shattered and reconstructed, told to make an effort every single day to pretend we
still function the way we're supposed to. But it's a lie, it's all a lie; every person, place, thing
and idea is a lie. I do not function properly. I am nothing more than the consequence of
catastrophe.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me
I lay on the couch in the front room. On the couch, we are not allowed to sit on -
in the front room, which we are not allowed to use. It’s the middle of the night, and
I am watching the cars that occasionally drive by our house. I’m catching the
reflection of the headlights through the blue Yemeni glass bottles in the front windows.
My mother has been collecting these glass bottles for years, and the light that reflects
from the headlights calms me. I do this on the nights he comes to my room and cuts
away at my innocence over and over again. He then leaves me there, goes to his room,
and falls asleep as though nothing has happened, as though I don’t matter, have no
consequence, and my existence is just an extension of his perverted desires.
I am left to pick up my pieces. I lay there on the forbidden couch, catching the pretty
blue rays, trying desperately to lull myself back into my own body. I am trying to put
my pieces back together like a jigsaw puzzle. Over time, though, more and more pieces
go missing, and the puzzle looks less and less like me.
On the forbidden couch in the room we aren’t allowed to use through the blue glass.
