When the Glass Shattered

(Ace of Swords – Part 3) 

Memory is a mystery.

Some slip away, locked behind doors we don’t know how to open.
Others wedge themselves into the body—unshakable, sharp, and alive.
Those are the swords.
The truths we never asked for.
The mindsets that shaped us before we ever had a say.

One of mine came wrapped in stripes—orange, red, and yellow.
A glass cup I wasn’t allowed to use yet.
But I loved it.
It felt like sunshine. Like something special, waiting for me.

I was four.

I know that because my mother was pregnant with my brother.
I was curled up on the couch with my father.
He was helping me read.
I was happy.

Then she started yelling.

Not at me—at him.
But my body tensed anyway.

I turned.

The cup was in her hand.
My cup.

And then—
Shatter. 

The sound is still in me.

Orange, red, and yellow shards scattered across the floor.
The sunlight gone.
Gone because I got in the way.

I didn’t understand the words. But I understood the story.
She needed him.
And I had stolen him.

The cup broke.
So I broke, too.

I learned how to vanish.
How to read the room before I read the page.
How to trade joy for safety.
How to hold guilt like a sacred inheritance.

That, too, was love.
That, too, was devotion.
That, too, became identity.

Until the sword whispered:
You were never supposed to carry this alone.