My Mother at work
It is strange that after so long, I can still be injured by the things that happened in my oh so regrettable past. At 18, I am in love, I know what I want to do for a career, even where I want to live. Hell, I even have names picked out for my children. My life is coming together. Yet, it is still falling down.
Just when I thought I was free, she found me out. For life has taught me only one thing: it is when we least expect the unreal, that it comes home.
One year, five months, and three days after her death, my Mom came to visit me on the job.
A dazed drug addicted woman stumbled to me, and asked me to catch some fish for her. Immediately I knew I was going to regret having been proactive in my customer service that day. However, I grabbed my favorite net and a plastic bucket, then I tried to oblige her request. Ten minutes later, after her stumbling over her words and thinking it was the seventh of July when it was the mere thirtieth of June, hit me like a bullet. The wound I had healed over, the very one I had been covering the scar of from the world, reopened and now is infected. It was the same muttering voice, the same swaying motion of my zoned out mother, the same strewn makeup. It was the woman who I had cleaned after she wet herself, it was the woman I checked vitals on when she fell asleep during a movie, it was the woman I hated, despised, was born to raise, and inevitably killed.
I cried, in the back room, holding my sides, asking God to take the sight from out my eyes.
The woman described her daughter, a mere sophomore, and I knew it was me, the same me of my own sophomore year. I wanted to save her, to take her from there, before she became me today. God, however, in all his infinite wisdom, refused my pleading. He left his 'child' to suffer, just like I have. Why would he do this?
Because he is dead. God gave up and suffered a death like the rest of us. Not to redeem us, but simply be rid of the incredible always that he survived. If you have not recognized it by now, I quite simply hate our creator for all the sadistic things he has done to us, like curse us with free will.
Now, I write. As I write one of my closest friends is no further than 15 feet from me right now, passed out from pot and drink. I have had perhaps one cup of a weak margarita. I am sober, obsessed with my memories, and am successfully tearing myself down. What a world it is in when I can sit in my kitchen trying to escape this house, these curses that drench my soul. I am wrecked.
What makes it worse is that the people that care deeply about me can no longer understand any of the things I experience on my journey because they no longer travel with me. I tried to keep Matthew with me, hoping he would know. Now, I know that he never will. This burden I bear, to finish what my Mother started, will always be with me.
I sit here, typing my soul to no one. The remains of a broken down hookah lie on the counter next to me; a beer with a chunk of lime lies next to an empty candy wrapper. The margarita mix sits amongst salad dressing bottles and old Wendy's cups. Bagged up cat food, and Lays potato chips next to an abandoned baseball cap seem to be the brightest thing in the room. The music of my radio fills the crisp air conditioned air, and I sit barefoot amongst it all. I try to remember something beautiful, but I cannot forget the obvious. This house is wrecked. My Father will be home in less than twenty-four hours, and all I have left to do is clean up the entire house.
One thing is for sure, that after all this time, me trying to run from my ghost has only served to draw me closer to things I hate. It has brought me to her. But all the explanation behind that will take time, and that is something that I lack. Someday I will tell the world what I have seen, what I know, and they will hang me for it. With all my secrets, I am Pandora's box.
Fuck you for opening this. You could not contain your interest, and I will burn you for it. Do not misunderstand, I will LOVE seeing you cry. I will dwell in your suffering and rain blood upon your family! I will master your happiness and wreck it.
I hate you for your lives of ignorance.
Bliss. Enjoy it fuckers.
Until then, enjoy the genius of Ben Folds:
"Everbody knows, it sucks to grow up, and everybody does, it's so weird to be back here. Let me tell you what, the years go on and on and we're still fighting it. You'll try and try, and one day you'll fly, away from me."
Just when I thought I was free, she found me out. For life has taught me only one thing: it is when we least expect the unreal, that it comes home.
One year, five months, and three days after her death, my Mom came to visit me on the job.
A dazed drug addicted woman stumbled to me, and asked me to catch some fish for her. Immediately I knew I was going to regret having been proactive in my customer service that day. However, I grabbed my favorite net and a plastic bucket, then I tried to oblige her request. Ten minutes later, after her stumbling over her words and thinking it was the seventh of July when it was the mere thirtieth of June, hit me like a bullet. The wound I had healed over, the very one I had been covering the scar of from the world, reopened and now is infected. It was the same muttering voice, the same swaying motion of my zoned out mother, the same strewn makeup. It was the woman who I had cleaned after she wet herself, it was the woman I checked vitals on when she fell asleep during a movie, it was the woman I hated, despised, was born to raise, and inevitably killed.
I cried, in the back room, holding my sides, asking God to take the sight from out my eyes.
The woman described her daughter, a mere sophomore, and I knew it was me, the same me of my own sophomore year. I wanted to save her, to take her from there, before she became me today. God, however, in all his infinite wisdom, refused my pleading. He left his 'child' to suffer, just like I have. Why would he do this?
Because he is dead. God gave up and suffered a death like the rest of us. Not to redeem us, but simply be rid of the incredible always that he survived. If you have not recognized it by now, I quite simply hate our creator for all the sadistic things he has done to us, like curse us with free will.
Now, I write. As I write one of my closest friends is no further than 15 feet from me right now, passed out from pot and drink. I have had perhaps one cup of a weak margarita. I am sober, obsessed with my memories, and am successfully tearing myself down. What a world it is in when I can sit in my kitchen trying to escape this house, these curses that drench my soul. I am wrecked.
What makes it worse is that the people that care deeply about me can no longer understand any of the things I experience on my journey because they no longer travel with me. I tried to keep Matthew with me, hoping he would know. Now, I know that he never will. This burden I bear, to finish what my Mother started, will always be with me.
I sit here, typing my soul to no one. The remains of a broken down hookah lie on the counter next to me; a beer with a chunk of lime lies next to an empty candy wrapper. The margarita mix sits amongst salad dressing bottles and old Wendy's cups. Bagged up cat food, and Lays potato chips next to an abandoned baseball cap seem to be the brightest thing in the room. The music of my radio fills the crisp air conditioned air, and I sit barefoot amongst it all. I try to remember something beautiful, but I cannot forget the obvious. This house is wrecked. My Father will be home in less than twenty-four hours, and all I have left to do is clean up the entire house.
One thing is for sure, that after all this time, me trying to run from my ghost has only served to draw me closer to things I hate. It has brought me to her. But all the explanation behind that will take time, and that is something that I lack. Someday I will tell the world what I have seen, what I know, and they will hang me for it. With all my secrets, I am Pandora's box.
Fuck you for opening this. You could not contain your interest, and I will burn you for it. Do not misunderstand, I will LOVE seeing you cry. I will dwell in your suffering and rain blood upon your family! I will master your happiness and wreck it.
I hate you for your lives of ignorance.
Bliss. Enjoy it fuckers.
Until then, enjoy the genius of Ben Folds:
"Everbody knows, it sucks to grow up, and everybody does, it's so weird to be back here. Let me tell you what, the years go on and on and we're still fighting it. You'll try and try, and one day you'll fly, away from me."
posted by Nat Rivera at 2:09 AM
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