everything changes (but we all stay the same)

3.6 // i wish momma didnt love me

i wish momma hated me instead.

but more than anything,
i wish she had been tender and loving
in the way a mother should be, growing up.
stern, but a child's first best friend.

i wish i could have known the smell of her perfume,
the feeling of her hugs,
the sound of lullabies and heartbeats.

but i don't,
all i know is coldness,
fear,
acrid black bubbling poison in my lungs
at the thought of having to be touched by her,
of having to hear her voice.

her voice... her voice is the worst part.
so loud,
so angry,
so narcissistic and mean and burning with sharp rage.

it sounds like broken fingernails
on a bloodied chalkboard,
it sounds like dread and pain and fear.

i wish things could have been different.
i wish momma had been a real mother to me.

————————————

she's so mean to me
and daddy
and my siblings.

she was mean to her first husband too,
she broke him to the point of beating my older brother when he was a kid,
and now bubba is just as messed up as me,
but angrier.

sissy is better off than us,
but she still has depression and anxiety.
sissy ran away from home
when she was sixteen,
i watched as mommy chased her downstairs,
broke down her bedroom door,
and pinned her to the bed,
slapping and hitting at her
as my sissy struggled and screamed,
and that day was the first day i heard sissy swear.

she escaped momma's grasp and ran past me,
telling me just how mean mommy is,
then she ran out the door
and ran away for a week.

the cops had to find her
and bring her back home.
strangely though,
she's on friendly terms with momma now.

it's weird.

but luckily,
my little brother is the healthiest
and best treated of all of us kids.

but momma slaps his arms a lot
and yells at him sometimes about homework.

it makes me mad
when momma's mean to him,
because i want to protect him from her,
make sure he stays happy and innocent.

from what i can tell,
he is.
i'm so happy he at least can be happy,
but i still wish momma would be nicer to him.

daddy rarely hangs out with us,
because he's always working hard at his job
to pay for all of us.
but daddy also does all of the housework,
and cleaning,
and everything else,
because mommy never leaves her room upstairs.

she smokes over 40 cigarettes a day,
and goes through a 10-pack carton of cigarettes in a week,
and each of those costs $40,
so a lot of daddy's money goes to those
and her dental bills,
because her teeth fall out
and break
and rot all the time,
because of the sugary iced tea
and opioids she lives off of.

and because momma never leaves her room
and spends all of daddy's money,
he's always working hard
and never has time to hang out with us...

i wish daddy didn't have to work so hard
and get so little for himself,
and i wish he could hang out with us more.

i want daddy to be happy.