Last Night, I Told My Mother "I Wish I Was Dead" In A Fit Of Rage And Winter Clouded Her Eyes. But It

Last night, I told my mother "I wish I was dead" in a fit of rage and winter clouded her eyes. But it wasn't white and it wasn't quiet, it resembled something like helplessness and rage. She was in pain and I knew I hurt her. I wanted to say something, anything, but how do you withdraw a declaration of war? How do you stop the bombs that already destroyed homelands? In that moment I remembered how she always told me that when she was a kid, she was too afraid to sleep with the lights on. Not because she was afraid of monsters, but because she feared her grandmother would die. Because when you're a kid, not seeing it means it doesn't exist anymore. I saw the winter in her eyes again and I knew I had switched off the light, she wasn't angry, she was afraid.

And I also remembered how she always told me I'd always be 3 years old for her, always a child, and for the first time, I heard in the voice of a three year old "I wish I was dead". My heart broke. And I wanted to hug her and hold her, tell her I was sorry, that I didn't mean it. Before I could move a hand, she left the room. The entire evening, I saw myself as she saw me, a 3 year old child. I saw the child hurt herself and cry herself to sleep every week, fight her friends with her tiny hands and two ponytails, I saw her depression and her anxiety, I saw her yell "I wish I was dead" and I knew. I knew. I wanted to shout through the walls, yell and cry and tell my mother that now I KNEW, but I didn't. I wept and wept until I heard a quiet knock and a soft familiar voice whispered, "Dinner is ready".

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire