The Mother I Became – to the mother

A rant and a letter to my mother. Mom, if you are reading this, don't.

Preface [of sorts]: I have been struggling to sit down and write. I think it is strictly due to the state of my mind, I have a lot of incoming thoughts not sure how to flesh them out at the moment. In all honesty, I have been waiting to wake up in the middle of the night and write something ‘good’, it tends to be when my thoughts are most raw, but even when I wake up, I seem to be desperately escaping myself by lying in bed not letting myself touch my laptop.

I think this is strictly because I feel a pang of guilt in wasting anyone's time if I happen to write some bullshit because honestly, I write to cause a certain peace in my chaotic mind even if temporary. To speak frankly, I do not write for you, I write as I need breath, I write as I need to live.

“There are some among us who live in rooms of experience we can never enter.” - John Steinbeck

I realize I have a lot of rooms; I am afraid to admit I write from a different room every time I sit down and I am afraid of shutting you in dear reader. I am not sure how heavy a lock can be in the form of the consumption of words, but I scare nonetheless for you. But what do I care? Explore my rooms if you wish, I might not rightfully endorse it, but this house is not a home if I must occupy it all alone.

The Mother I Became – to the mother

You are sitting on your couch beside your late husband watching cable television, something I know you do on most days, but it’s Sunday, so I know you do not wear your dentures. You wear men’s Levi’s and a cardigan from a flea market and the only thing that fills your mind is an excuse to go out and smoke another cigarette. Pulling up your cardigan around yourself you call someone who is not me while robotically picking up your cigarettes on your way outside to your back porch. The trailer you live in runs along a creek and the air fills your lungs with damp heat, you barely notice before your cigarette is lit.

Aimlessly with phone in hand, cigarette in mouth, you pluck weeds from your garden. This is your natural form, Mother. Talking aimlessly on the phone, picking weeds, and smoking. This is the form you take in my mind when I close my eyes wondering what you might be up to. Lately, I have been hanging on to this image of you, an image where you seem at peace.

When I think of you unintentionally, I see you unsure. I see you abused. I see you sad.

It is an odd thing looking at you through my young eyes, I had always seen a strong and fearless woman, but my naivete is vanishing. When I see through my five-year-old eyes, you are bleeding from a punch from Steve square to the nose, I no longer see fearlessness, I see the fear of a mother taking the front lines for her children. You would scream at me to go to my room at five years old when all I wanted to do is help you, it is because of you I thought about killing someone before I could know the meaning of murder.

Steve was scary, but he only scared me when you were not home. I woke up in the middle of the night, with growing pains in my legs, typically I would wake you crying and within a minute you would be there rubbing my sinched and malnourished muscles until I fell asleep again. I waited what felt like forever and you never came to me. I hobbled in pain and blurring tears to the staircase making it halfway down when I heard the cupboards slamming. I called for you, I kept making my way down more steps until I saw you. I could not contain my crying as the hiccups of pain were vomited from my lungs. I knew once you saw me at the stairs my pain would be gone and I would be asleep again.

My relief was premature as Steve’s voice came through in booms, looking for mommy huh? Always crying for mommy you fucking brat I will give you something to cry about. He takes off and rounds the corner hitting his hip and throwing himself to the ground. My pain was fleeting as I scrambled up the stairs like a dog. I shut myself in the closet, bedroom door locked sobbing silent as a mouse as I waited for the sun to come up. I did not exist in that house unless you were home.

To this day I do not know where you were. I always felt asking would not give me the truth or at least the truth I was looking for. I imagine from the stories I have been told you were out using heroin, not a clue in your beautiful skull that by thirty years old all of your teeth would have to be pulled from the consequences of your momentary bliss. I know you quit using heroin many years ago, but opiates are still your guilty lover.

I do not shame you; I do not see you in light of failure. You have your smoke breaks, your pain, and your creek and I feel like there is not much more I could wish for you. I only wish when I called you it wasn’t because I just rolled up a joint and needed an excuse to go outside and pull my weeds.