In the morning;

My mother doesn't believe in love. I think she stopped after my dad painted her soft skin with the harsh colors of blue and purple one too many times, or maybe it was after the nights he came home smelling of cheap perfume she'd never wear. Or no, I bet she stopped when he picked me as the canvas for his unwarranted anger. Growing up, she'd tell me that she'd pray god would make her heart like stone, like the rocks that the sea beats against over and over, she craved their inability to feel. She claims her prayers were answered, but sometimes, when she sees old couples walking hand in hand, very much still in love, she turns to me with a sad smile and reveals that she always thought that'd be her and him, but I have to look away. That smile. It tells of her shattered dreams and whispers softly of her broken heart.

My mom doesn't believe in love. As soon as I could understand the concept, she drilled it into my head that there was no such thing. She thought it was a waste of time, sneered at those who tried to say it was one of the things worth living for. Unnecessary, dangerous, was how she described it.

Yet here I am in the morning, lying in bed whilst looking at her alabaster hair draped over the pillow and her abstruse eyes studying the book in her hands.

I wouldn't want anything other than her.

This is inspired by an episode of Black Mirror