Review

my tears ricochet mirrors how I experience my relationship with my mom as a queer person,rooted in fierce love, yet fractured by the cost of being fully seen. I love her deeply, enough that I understand the impulse behind “I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace,” because walking away from someone you would give your life for is never graceful. Still, I refuse to let myself be “buried” to preserve her narrative of who I am supposed to be. When Swift asks, “If I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake?” it echoes the contradiction of being loved in name but not in truth, claimed as a child while my identity is quietly mourned. Choosing distance feels like letting my tears ricochet my grief lingering not as punishment, but as proof that love should not require self-erasure. In the end, I would rather be absent from her version of me than disappear from myself.