Lotuslands All Die (A Collection)

I Still Am Afraid of the Dark

And don't you ever tell your mother you hate her. I don't care if it was indirect; I don't care if she asked you why you hate living at your house, her voice squeaking like a broken-limbed rat stuck in a sewer pipe, her pleas bouncing off the steel walls, to your eardrums, and into your cranium. I don't care if the answer is, "You, Momma. And Daddy, too. And my siblings--my God, my damned siblings." If that's your answer, you better never show it; never say it; never let that phrase leave your blistered lips, torn apart by metal braces, fixing the jagged teeth that she can't even recognize anymore. Her baby is growing up; her baby is falling apart. She can't even breathe when you say the words..."I hate you."

And I hope you never feel that level of distraught-colored silence. Your mother--no matter how ill, fragile, or beastly--will fall to her knees. I have seen it; I have witnessed the mighty fall of Goliath, and I--a simple David. And when the smoke clears, your verbal bullets full of slurs and broken promises all used up, your gun of vocal chords and carbon dioxide halfway broken, I pray that she does not do what my mother did.

I was 8-years-old when my mother was diagnosed with brain cancer. My family never told me anything was wrong with her until she went into surgery. I remember the first time I saw her without hair--without her auburn mane, as full as sunshine. They told me they had to get rid of it to get to her scalp; they were gonna cut her open. They were gonna use chemo. I didn't know what that was. I didn't know it was going to alter my mother's body useless, strip her of her body's rights, deny her the privilege of driving, and make her clavicles pop out like a teen with an eating disorder. I didn't know.

After that, she faded, you know. She never helped me with my depression, never calmed me and my anxiety, and certainly wouldn't understand my struggles of being transgender. She promised me a lot of things; yelled at me over trivial things; always made everything about her. And you know, what? I was mad; oh my God, madder than a damned hornet on speed.

And I told her, right when I got back from my sister's house: "Mom, I hate you. I hate Dad. I hate my brother. I hate this house. All it does is cause me pain. I want to move out, but I'm only 15." And she responded, "You say it's never about me, but it ALWAYS IS. You know my condition, but you don't know the pain I feel. You hate me, but you don't even know half of me. You hardly even know me because the drugs I take put me to damn sleep all the fucking time."

And she froze.

And I sunk back in my chair. I never knew her; not really. I always said I hated her to my friends. I did, at least some amount, due to the fact that she watched my dad abuse me and would sit back and do nothing. But, other than that, I was just being an ableist fool. It's not like she could do anything. In fact, I was probably one of the most ignorant children to ever exist. How could I hate what I didn't know? Hating darkness or void simply because you don't know what's inside is a child's game. I was afraid of the dark; afraid of creepy noises in the night. I was afraid of something my mind couldn't comprehend: my mother's suffering.

And if you ever tell your mom that you hate her, you're probably more afraid of her than anything.