Mommy,


I know what you have done. I know your past. There are nights you cannot remember. I have watched my reflection grow and morph. It’s not mine anymore- it’s yours. I see the way you look at me and I wonder if you miss it. The way your cheekbones were strong and prominent or the way your hair curled at the tips; do you miss the freckles now covered in your liver spots?

I think that you believe that I am the person that you were; but I am not. It isn’t a life I wanted. I have watched you waste your life away on paint-by-numbers. Stay awake for so many nights that the bulbs would go out after we just replaced them. I have watched as your eyes sunk below your cheekbones and your teeth began to disappear. I open the windows when the house begins to spell dingy and I take my sister outside. How could you- she’s only ten.

There was a time when I believed in you. You were once the person I wanted to be. I see how wrong I was now and I hope for a better future. I hope to be someone my daughter will always she as she did when she was small; when she is too young to know what “crank” or “glass” is, and too young to ask questions. She will not know those words as I did. They will not be in her earliest memories.

I remember your last use. I remember how long you yelled at me for the things you do.

I wonder if you think you were talking to your reflection.