Pull the String
By Allison Elizabeth
Tarot cards are unreliable. Random images decided by the unknowable forces of the universe? No thank you. Everything has already been predetermined by one person; my mother.
Every stop on the train in my new home pulls the string in her back til the pressure bursts and she says,
“When are you coming home?”
Drop the hot press. Dye my hair with the ink from the pen, there’s nothing to write that hasn’t been written. A new place to explore the illusion of freedom. Why not clear the mist and wind the string around my fingers?
Should I wear this to the bar?
PULL THE STRING
“I don’t even know why the cashier allowed you to buy that.”
What am I going to eat for lunch?
PULL THE STRING
“Mac and cheese. It never gets old! Unlike me. You’ve stolen all my beauty.”
Do these sunglasses fit my face?
PULL THE STRING
“They look like they’re about to burst.”
But what came first, the daughter or the mother? The string intertwines in my mother’s hands. She had to learn it from someone.
PULL THE STRING
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Out in the car in the driveway she sits K I S S I N G.
PULL THE STRING
“You need to use your head.”
She does not write anything that is not in code.
“You are grounded!”
Can’t cut it loose. Every pull from me is a pull on her and on her and her and her and her until we are nothing but dust.
Dust now reanimated into an 18 inch fully posable girl YOU dear reader can buy at the store! Now introducing; mother.
Don’t feel like doing the dishes?
PULL THE STRING
“I guess you’ll just have to move home.”
Never feel unsatisfied with your productivity again! My mother is your mother is her mother is our mother. With our patent approved lists of advice we can all have and be mother.
Your friends playing the TV too loudly at 3:00 AM?
PULL THE STRING
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Your boyfriend shave his face and not clean up your sink?
PULL THE STRING
“I don’t want to feel like there are men living here. There shouldn’t be a man living here.”
She’s here to make everything better and worse.
WARNING: May cause anxiety, depression, expectations you can never live up to, constant fear of the floor crumbling beneath your feet, neck pain from always looking over your shoulder, unconditional love, feelings of connection with every young girl you meet on the train, ‘oh my god I am becoming my mother.’
Pick yours up now.