The earth runs miles and miles, past the horizons, and curves into a sphere. Not stopping, or cutting into edges of free fall. But a mass of force, keeping everything on the surface afloat. The Earth, a palm, rolled into a tight fist holds everything it owns. I am a perverse angel, I can hold the Earth with my feet. Feel the green, spread as far as the eye could see. I can feel the heat touch me gently. I look up to the sun, eyes wide open; watch it till I am nothing but the darkness. Most nights, I wake up in sweat. Months and years, like ice, dissolve on my tongue, leaving nothing but emptiness behind. Does it count, if I feel happy in my dreams? Scared or free? Or perhaps anything except an empty vessel of organs? I wake up, kiss the picture of “Italy farms” as I leave my room. My parents who were waiting for me, started dinner as I sat. My family runs a glass and porcelain business. Carried down from our ancestors, we’ve mastered creating exceptional porcelain dolls and art. The dining table roars with laughter as my brother retells his story of joining the business on his 20th birthday. The air feels heavier than usual. My mother fixes my hair from across the table, “Are you nervous sweets?” The onslaught of identical days, a snake roped around my throat- I realised, it was time. I feel the noose around my neck tighten. I was 10 when I asked my mom what it meant to be happy. For years, I would rush to her side, with panic in my eyes “I want to cry mumma, I feel like crying…” It felt emergent and important. Like the time we had to rush Dad into the emergency room after he cut his hand working. For weeks we talked about how red everything turned. Papa joked how that was the first time he truly felt alive. How he could see his perfect white skin, turn red. I used to want to hold my mother and tell her, take me to the doctor, get me help; I need to cry, and I don’t understand why. How do you measure the wound of your blood pumping through your veins? In anticipation of what today holds for me, I got up from the table and ran. The life laid out in front of me terrifies me. In a moment, where I can be either a monster or a martyr, I wanted madness. I watched the years slip from my fingers- I thought I had time, I had hope. I wished I was special. The hallways of my house become a tangled mess. In a heap of panic, I run. From one room to the other, doors behind doors- I am stuck. A home I’ve lived in my entire life now stands as a mystery, and my way out is obsolete. Dehydrated and in a frenzy of the growing bricks, I return to the kitchen. How do I forgive myself for all the dreams I could not achieve? Mumma didn’t sleep the entire 9 months she was pregnant with me. She used to scream to Papa “What will I do if she drowns in my belly, or choke on my blood?” Hell, purgatory, paradise- A rock on my chest. I would reach inside my chest, and take my heart out if it would stop me from turning into my parents. Lay myself on the table, Limb by limb, and watch them devour me; push me down their throats. I rise to my knees. Unable to form words, or feel my head attached to my body. I shout. All my life, all I ever wanted to be was free. My anger that rattled the house, didn’t amuse my parents. Feeling stuck under a glass bowl, my noise echoes and hits me harder. I shout “Mumma I think I’m drowning”. Papa looks me in the eye and smiles. Our eyes eat the whole world silently. Despite everything your eyes have seen, papa, they seem lonely- they look like me. I never had an answer for my parents, why I felt sick, why I sat up all night counting the cracks in my ceiling, why I needed to cry. I was 15 when I finally told them; “I want to go home”. My body my mother’s, my trauma my father’s, curses passed down through generations. Nothing will ever be truly mine. All these years, my bed became my casket. A dream to run away from this house, to be different, and free- a fleeting feeling. This is us. My crazy is inherited, and the entrapment- tradition. This is my family, tell me Mother I’m alive, tell me I don’t belong. I deny my sadness the tears, a reflection of my resolution to finally give up, I sit at the table. My family surrounds me as my brother brings out my birthday cake with 20 lit candles. My family yawps and sings in celebration, as I cut the cake. A single teardrop rolls from my cheek. I feel my family’s hands on my body- swaying me and breaking me apart. I sigh as my skin starts turning white. My fingers, my chest, my hair now perfectly still. I’m finally my parents' daughter- all porcelain. Everyone sits around me, perfect porcelain dolls. Are we alive, or are we just breathing? I’m the last to join the family. An echo of a haunting floating above my head. I’ve grieved what I could have been, I’ve fought generational wisdom. I am my parent’s blood. I am a craftsman, like my mother; I am lonely, and careless like my father. I make dolls and art with glass and porcelain. I lie down in my mother’s lap, crying. She strokes my cheek, as she whispers in my ear, “Lie down here forever sweets, I’m your casket, your home. You can stop searching now.