If I could make my mother say and mean anything, It would be, you’re right, I am narcissistic. You’re right, I failed you back then. If I fail you now, then you’re right in the worst way.
I wait for you to show some guts.
You cry.
I wait for you to remember how we were children,
and you had us go into the house first,
when you thought there might be an intruder,
because you also thought you were acting crazy.
But you also called a neighbor, a man, to come with a flashlight,
and lead us through the house, peer in the closets, make sure
there was no intruder.
There was never an intruder.
But there was never a real defense, either.
I still dream that intruders are out there, and the windows are cracked,
and the lock is cheap, and all our lights are on,
and they’re watching us.
In my dream, I ready for battle, because mom will not.
Mom will fold.
You wonder how. You’re so strong, your family loves you (but doesn’t feel safe around you), you’re so smart and beautiful. You never had to be single, receive any real harsh criticism, or come up with your defense.
You never had a plan to get us out, if the building burned.
If anything, you wouldn’t believe the smoke, and we’d all die, waiting for a man to tell us if the fire is real.
You came a long ways, but still fell so short.
What did it say in your diaries?
I’m your hottest critic, I have no drops of mercy for you, mother.
If father wasn’t pouring the cooling ice of mercy on your head every minute, I would help.
But you been helped. We helped you. Didn’t we?
Didn’t we? Didn’t we?
We helped you, and think we still will.
Maybe they will, but I won’t, lying witch.
You lie, you pretend, you fake things, you evade, you dodge,
but you don’t stand firm on your self worth.
Why not? Do you have none? At 75, even? No fucking rock beneath you to know that your family loves you? That you’re a basic person, a quarter heroic, a quarter pathetic, and half unmade.
Why can’t you know that, and then know it for us?
What you did to us is hard to describe, but we find the ways.
We find the words, and you don’t decide.
You don’t decide what words are accurate anymore, you lost that right by showing poor judgement.
So much poor judgement. So much luck your kids didn’t die or kill themselves.
And even if you make to your grave holding faithful to the deal about how your parents loved you, but we don’t.
If they’re good, we can’t be trusted.
But they weren’t good. Were they? They were bad people.
Racist people. Patriarchal people who hold women down.
Who fear black men? Who hated Obama. Who hated niggers.
Didn’t you come from that?
So what happened to that? Huh? Where did it go. Oh.
Women who went schizophrenic because they followed the power signals. But you never owned your power. That doesn’t make it unreal. Your power was real to us, and you abused it, and nothing can make that go away, except you owning it, mother. Own your fuck up. Own your fucked up ness. Because we all know. We all know you’re high, and drunk, and still have no self esteem, or right to life, at 75. The only thing you know how to do is bully me. And look what I became. Thank you. Got my muscle up. Ready to kill intruders for my children. There’s no forgiveness for bad parents who aren’t actually sorry.