Dear Mom

Dear mom,

you gave me pain.

Yet you stand there asking,

begging,

pleading for forgiveness you never earned.

You don't deserve.

You never earned the name.

The title.

You call yourself my mom.

My mother.

You claim you have the right,

any rights to my life.

To me,

to my husband.

You don’t.

You’re not my mom,

my mother.

I lost that figure when you made me a mom myself.

A mom to my sister,

a mom to my cousins.

I was eight.

You claimed you were at work,

you were out,

anywhere but there.

Claims,

lies,

anything to get out of the responsibility you reaped yourself.

I reap you.

I reap your lies,

your drunken manipulations.

I reap you and the victim complex you’ve made yourself into.

I opened my eyes.

Saw the reality of the life I was raised in.

I saw the truth to the hard glares I received as a child.

I saw the phrase “you’re so mature for your age” as what it really is;

a small nod from adults to an adult made too soon.

You forced me out,

forced me to need a way out.

Life or death I didn't care,

shadows of rope burn around my neck remind me of that.

Blackened bruises danced along my ribs.

Near broken bones echoed a xylophone sound through hollow memories.

A moonless night pushed me into that tree.

Into that rope.

Unheard cries on dusty trails while dirty hands caressed what wasn't his.

Drunken breath grazing across my neck.

I came home crying,

dirty,

soaking in the putrid smell of that stolen last shred of innocence.

Then,

it was my turn to beg.

To plead.

Not for forgiveness, but for belief.

You never did.

I was fourteen.

Silent crying because god forbid I be too loud.

God forbid I interrupt your Netflix and weed.

God forbid I have feelings.

You took my innocence.

My childhood.

Myself from me.

It took finding him to find me again.

To heal.

So beg and plead and get on your knees.

I will not forgive you.

I can not forgive you.

Sincerely, your former daughter.