The Fluorescent Moment

I woke at 3 a.m. knowing exactly what I'd done.

My daughter came home and told me

she'd been unkind to her friend,

and I saw the calculation in her face—

the same cold math I learned at thirteen

in the hallway under those lights.

That moment when you know

what you're about to do

and you do it anyway,

because the cruelty lives in you

and you want to feel it work.

I looked at her and saw myself

looking back,

and I couldn't look away,

and I couldn't tell her it was okay,

and I couldn't sleep.

The girl's face is still there.

Not my daughter's friend.

The girl from the hallway,

the one whose face changed

when she understood

what I was.

I'm thirty-seven years old

and I still can't forgive

the person I was

when nobody was watching.