18 Years of God Damn Bullshit: A Memoir

Her Letters

May 31, 2020

I reread Mom's letters again.

Hurts less this time.

I hold the thin papers so gently like they're butterfly wings.

Though they are more like the wings of some terrible angry hornet which makes my eyes water when it stabs me in that deep place.

Everytime, I open myself up to pain.

Trying to understand the non-understsndable.

Trying to look at them with therapist glasses, taking notes on how she's like every other white [person's] mom whom they hate.

It's pain, and longing.

Judgement, narcissism, manipulation.

She is humble, and the victim, and noble.

Between the 'I love you's' are presumptions of why I 'lied', or comments on where I should improve.

And sometimes, opportunities to do something for her.

I wonder how dumb she thinks I am.

Maybe she doesn't see it, but deep down, I know she does

I want to love her when I'm 22

I want to go on the famous 'trip' we've been planning for the majority of my life

I

want to talk things out and somehow things will get better

Maybe she'll magically not be herself for a night, and then we hug and pass a blunt between us like old times

When will I learn that you can't change people

I couldn't change her before

I can't change her now

A part of me hopes she'll just be different somehow when I'm 22

I don't want to think of it anymore

I want to burn this pain

Will I kill the hornet

Or only anger it?