Through shattered glimpses of a life that was mine, but not, I breathe in the past and all that dares to exist in the depths of my mind. The glass conceals my memories—so close, yet far from the truth of my existence. Each splinter holds a perspective estranged from my own.

‘Do you see me, Father?’

My reflection stares back at me. Watching. Waiting. Her grey eyes are colder than I remember, with lines of angst engraved into her scarred skin.

‘Has she always looked this troubled? Burdened? Lost? Or only now in this new light, in this new angle, do I see the girl estranged to me?’

‘What has become of me?’

In black and white grief, Archive of longing sits trying to untangle the confusion from my mind. You remember one thing, and I remember another. We both try to clasp the threads of reality, but they slip through our fingers just as time inevitably does.

I don’t know what to believe, nor what to see.

‘Why is my childhood but the fog of my mind?’

The process to such creation is that the glass shatters, and I know this is crucial to the reassembling, the redefining, but still … my heart aches. I yearn for what once was … the naivety to who I once was … but even that was all but a lie.

The glass shatters, and I attempt to piece together a life that was meant to be mine.

Not yours. Not anyone’s. Mine. My memories may have been distorted—but where is the harm in remembering and searching for a kinder life? A life that breathes along my spine, brushes a hand across my cheek, and shelters me from my anxieties. Isn’t that what life is meant to be? Lives are stitched together comfortably in the fairytales I’ve read and in the artworks I’ve seen. Yet in my reflection, they are not linked with each other—they have never been. I have to come to accept this, which is why I now reassemble the past and illuminate what I used to ignore.

Now, I write my findings in my diary, an excerpt defying all that I used to believe about myself and my past:

My parents got divorce when I was five. They were high school sweethearts that turned into enemies. I don’t remember much about what happened before their divorce, and I only have little photos. This means that there is small proof that I was even there, and that we were once a functional family. ‘Were we ever happy?’ I’ve wanted to ask. In all of my mother’s stories, we didn’t seem to have been that way. Why was she with him? Why did she carve out her heart and hand it to him to shatter? Loving isn’t meant to hurt. Loving is where you notice the little moments, the overlooked things, the laboured breaths. You celebrate them—because that is love. You shouldn’t need to reassemble time, because we should’ve never been broken. That is not love.

The lack of evidence doesn’t make sense, as it was during that time that I started to become the girl I am today. In that period of time, I learnt to read clenched jaws and I memorised the rhythm of footsteps in the hallway. I always anticipated whether the next creak and the next breath meant safety or God forbid—fear. I expected for the worst to happen—and it did.

Like the mosaics that the historians worship, these fragments of glass memories bind together. They thread reality and fiction. It wasn’t until Ali Tahayori when I realised my power to define my past as mine.

Now I know of it, and I piece together the shattered glass—the broken memories and identities that we/I still cling to. All in hope that I would come to know who I am, and who you are. ‘Who are you? Who are you to define my every breath whenever I choke?’ These questions come to me in the dead of night. They haunt me. They follow me. They caress the phantom of my every breath. As I stare ahead, these questions stand by my side. They hold my hands, as they too want to understand the past.

Tahayori’s Archive of longing stands before me like an altar for which my knees would bleed. The snapshots of moments discarded invite me for a thorough investigation.

They are photographs of time—a time with the phantom of you, my father—and they are printed on glass. They are broken, and then reassembled. These photographs are moments overlooked. They are moments that help define a person, but it all depends on what you genuinely want to see. The cracks between the glass shards form constellations across faces, expressions, and memories. They illuminate the violence of such a craft—one that reveals rather than hides. As each angle shifts, they abandon all interpretation that you, my father, may hold.   

Still, these works pinpoint what you have seemingly forgotten … what you, my father, have overlooked.

I am guilty of it too, I won’t deny.

Tahayori makes me recollect all the memories that I have swept away. Now, I search for the truth and understanding. As I circle the work, the image shifts: a shoulder appears, and a gaze vanishes. A tear escapes my eye. The photograph refuses to be pinned down—it refuses any interpretation, much like the truth of you … and the truth of me.

I wonder what you would see, Father. If your memories truly are estranged to my own memories. I search for the truth while reassembling these moments. I wonder, do you search for the truth as well … or an excuse? An excuse for all the memories I forced myself to let go because the truth behind them was far too difficult for a child to hold onto.

Now I call to them.

I shatter them.

I reassemble them.

In the reassembly, I encapsulate my experiences and my survival—not the manipulation of your hand that had carved my childhood. No longer will I be defined by what you wish.

‘What if you were the ones crafting these pieces? What do you search for … what do you see? What does anyone passing me see?’

I turn my head, watching others take in the work. Their eyes are narrowed, and they keep their chins high. They too stand in silence. It’s as if all are succumbing to the shards. A girl meets my gaze before quickly looking away. There’s a bob to her throat, and a shake to her head. Her thoughts must be troubling too, I suspect. I fight the urge to ask her all about it. That’s all I ever wanted. I wanted someone to ask me. I wanted someone to go through the journey of my past and identify the moments that made me into who I am today. I didn’t believe that I was strong enough to do it by myself—I didn’t want to see my childhood for what it actually was. That explained the distortion in my memories, but having warped memories was easier—so much easier.

This piece may not be my own but Tahayori’s, though I interpret it as such. It takes the shape of a comfort from a person I have never met but have always needed. I’m reassured of my strength. As I take a step to my right, my reflection shifts across the glass shards. My attention is pulled to one specific black and white photograph: the one containing hands intertwined with no fear of one another. Hand-holding is such a simple act, and yet, Tahayori shows the true weight of it. I never noticed it until now that I yearn for the simplest of things, as you never hold my hand. I don’t even remember the last time you embraced me. The glass shards smothering this specific piece are sharp, with three points. A point for me. A point for you. A point for the truth. And they all connect like we’re all connected.

The next photograph is focusing on the art of a hug—of an embrace. Subconsciously, I cling to myself, along with my nails deep in my skin. I hold myself, and one day that will be enough—but for now, I am realising why I am the way I am, and I start the journey of accepting it.

Nevertheless, Tahayori’s strength—it inspires mine.

Even if my touch withers, I will review time, the memories it conceals, and I will craft it into how it should be. I’ll illuminate even the most insignificant moments just like Tahayori has done, for there I may find the lost touch of my soul. For there … I may find myself—who I’m truly meant to be. I will find an explanation that will help me accept the thread that binds my heart shut.

Tahayori’s glass does not forgive, as the cracks cannot go unnoticed. It does not forgive the beat of my heart, nor the print of my fingers. It’s not something that can easily tear. When the glass breaks, it shatters, and all notice. The audience don’t expect that I can piece myself back together—that I can piece my past as though it is paper. But I do, and the fact is that I deserve to be noticed—just as Tahayori’s work deserves to be noticed.

It is strange, seeing myself in a place I didn’t belong—the unsettling feeling of intruding my own history. My breath catches as the surface first reflects another face before pulling mine into the frame. Am I the witness and the participant in a life I barely recognise—or am I simply on display, waiting for you to decide?

My finger slips—and the glass, although but a phantom, cuts me.

Am I still spellbound to your control?

Tell me, Father, do you remember when I was six and I dropped a glass in the kitchen?

My breath stilled, my heart stopped, and my palms trembled as I tried to put the shards back together. Your footsteps echoed through my mind. A sound I had memorised long time ago as it echoed the thunder of my heart. The glass before me was broken—just as we were broken. You stood tall in the doorframe, the sound of your voice threatening to further splinter the broken glass that was smothering my palms.

But, as I grow older, I now question, ‘Had the glass shattered … or had I?’

When the yelling stopped and all succumbed to the ringing silence, you consoled me. You tried to piece me back together as though I was yours to do so. I never realised it back then, but I realise it now.

A moment captured, rephotographed, enlarged, broken, reassembled—this repetition and reassembling is the art of understanding yourself. They mimic how we tell and retell our past until it becomes something else entirely—an explanation—but this something else is the closure we need.

I am a survivor.

All these memories were battles that have marked my existence, and I have survived each one. I deserve to piece them back together to encapsulate that my survival should be celebrated. It is celebrated—just not by you. You will never have that opportunity again.

My eyes drift to another photograph. This time it is of a male holding a cigarette. I smile. A real, genuine smile that allows the glisten to return to my eyes. It reminds me of a man I knew—a man you will never be.

During a time when I was lost in the crevices and the cracks of these glass shards, a man of another kind appeared in my life. He took me in when you left me out. With time, he learnt about the shattered pieces of my identity—he learnt about the mess that you had made and abandoned. I saw the anger on his lip and the rage on his eyes—yet when he looked at me, love replaced the cold. I expected for him to yell as you did, for him to claim that I was selfish for putting myself first—but he didn’t. He never did. Instead, he said, “Don’t let the past define your future.” And I won’t. He had lived a similar experience. Whilst it took him 40 years to identify himself, he helped me do it in 20.

I never realised it then, but he helped reassembling my name. He passed the glass pieces to me, and I placed each of the unique piece however I wish … crafting patterns with the technical beauty and intricacy not unlike those of Tahayori’s. In the end, the shards that I carefully pieced together represent who I am and what I have survived.

Now, as I stand before Tahayori’s artwork, the cracks remain. I see them. You see them. All see them. Perhaps that is the point. Without the cracks between the glass, my existence might be ignored, because they illuminate the struggles that made who I am now. As the reworked photographs capture the aftermath of my survival, the cracks capture the ‘during’ that  moulded who I am today.

I pieced this life back together.

I pieced myself back together.

You may have taken the photo and illustrated the memory, but it is I who choose how to see it.

It is not your past that defines you, but how you use it—what you make of it.

Like Tahayori, I will make moments of my past into something grand that illuminates my memory.

Time goes on, as it inevitably does.

With my hair growing longer, and comfort returning to my eyes, I learnt how to breathe my name. I stopped searching for myself in every reflection I passed, and I stopped wondering who I would have been had life turned out any different.

My remastered memories would always be mine, like Tahayori’s would always be his. It only matters what we see, what we remember.

I turn on my heel and approach the exit. Before I can go on with the life that is now in my palms, I turn back to Archive of longing. In this light, the photographs are barely visible as the glass is reflecting the spotlights above.

I find that to be intentional. It was as though Tahayori is leaving a blank canvas for me to fill. The cracks in the glasswork are still visible. As I slightly angle my head, I watch the light shifts. Now I know that I can remaster my past and reassemble it into something that I can be proud of.

With a breath, I say goodbye. But as the light shifts, I notice one of the reassembled photos. It’s a photo of a girl. She looks to be my age … with a smile similar to mine.

I will make her proud—just as I will make myself proud.