SERENITY

Serenity sits in the corner of my living room, always well dressed and immaculate. Silently she gazes unseeing towards the cracked mirror on the opposite wall.

She doesn’t hear the manic muttering or the frenzied shouting of my daughter, high on a drug which has again sent her scuttling into psychosis.

She is blind to the scrabbling scuffle as to keep my sanity, I have to push Tammy out through the front door.

She doesn’t engage in the conversation when the police arrive with their kindly questions, reassurance and advice.

But she is there and when they leave, her passive peacefulness washes over me, making me calmer, wordlessly reminding me that to her, the mirror is not cracked and nothing is broken.

Serenity, wearing my cast-off clothes and shoes. Serenity, my beautiful statuesque mannequin.