In Her Mother’s Likeness
By Alyssa Jordan
[Let’s start with the present]
Ella doesn’t trust people.
She hides this fear well, beneath her words
and her swagger. She pretends to be
the bitchy girl. It’s a good mask,
one that is thick enough
to make her feel safe.
One day,
he tells her she doesn’t hide
her fear well; she doesn’t hide it
at all.
Her mask is flimsy and white and thin,
much like the rest of her.
Ella still pretends
she wears armor instead of paper.
[Now we pick a day at random]
Ella buys rum-laced coffee at a gas station.
She bites her lip
when a disheveled man
stumbles out of a bus, cussing out
the driver. He looks her way,
so she smiles, ever so gently.
[Rewind]
Ella thinks about the bus she rode as a kid.
Every day, she wore lacy dresses,
shiny black shoes. She crossed her legs
and she never spoke, not even
when the driver started to look
her way.
It wasn’t long before he did more
but still, she could not speak.
Ella bore it all like her mother before her.
Where it stops,
she doesn’t know.
Alyssa Jordan is a writer living in the United States. She pens literary horoscopes for F(r)iction Series. Her stories can be found or are forthcoming in The Sunlight Press, X–R-A-Y Literary Magazine, LEON Literary Review and more. You can find her on Twitter @ajordan901 or Instagram @ajordanwriter.