Bifurcation

The most terrifying thing in the world is to see the evil or mean side of a very good person, someone you love, someone you need to trust.

Passive aggressive smiles make me tremble with fear. Like Cheshire cat smiles, what you see isn't what is really there. It's like glimpsing evil through a veil of love.

Reality verses what you want to believe, challenges faith. Faith in reality. Faith in love. Faith in goodness. If someone really important to you, like your mother, is not exactly who she seems to be, underlying your love for her, your need for her is your fear of her.

You cannot live without her to protect you, but she is irrationally unpredictable.

She brings you all the safety and sweetness, all the creativity and joy and she brings you nightmares of fire and pigs with red eyes. She is the werewolf whose finger snaps and creates fire, fire that burns you alive.

The beautiful auburn haired goddess with the sparkling green eyes can turn into a banshee, throwing lightning strikes with her hands, splitting heads from across the room, cutting your joy out with a few concise words.

Yet there is no one else to heat the washcloths for your earaches, make you soft food when your throat hurts. There is no one who does more for you, or tries harder, to make you happy.

It is like one of those dolls you can flip upside down. One way she is an angel. The other a demon.

Both extraordinarily ferocious.

And she flips in a moment.