Dear Michelle,

Dear Michelle,

I am sure you prefer mom (I prefer bitch). That's beside the point though. Tonight, as I write to you, the glowing screen of my laptop illuminates me against the inky black and soft music fills my lungs in place of cigarette smoke. These days, the stinging in my throat comes from screamed lyrics rather than nicotine. My bones are filled with lead and my joints creak as if I was an abandoned home that was settling on its worn foundation. My eyes burn as I watch these characters appear, one by one, each spelling out my sadness. I force my aching hands to write until the skin has given way to bone, and my anger pours out and paragraphs of profanities and gibberish. My hands are worn, my cheeks have eroded in the places where tears have fallen and rivers have formed. my shoulders loom over my head as I said, nightly, hunched over. Cobwebs collect underneath exhausted eyes in the form of dark blue veins against porcelain flesh. I am so tired. My body is so tired. Do you understand how unfair it is that you got to move on, you carry on without pain, you get to detach while the fires of hell rage on inside of me? For once, the burning in my chest isn't from tears. No, this is anger, hatred, betrayal.

I HATE YOU

Or rather, I hate that I still love you, despite the things you shouted at me.
I hate that I long to hug you again.
I hate that I miss you.
I hate that you abandoned me.
You left me alone in the darkest, coldest, loneliest places. You gave up on me. You stopped fighting.
I hate that I wanted you to fight.

I HATE THAT YOU CAN HOLD THE FACT THAT YOURE MY MOTHER AGAINST ME.

Still though, I sleep with the blanket you made for me and whisper halfhearted prayers into the dark. I do it in hopes that maybe one day, I might be able to stop feeling this gut-wrenching, heartstring-pulling, nausea-inducing longing for my mother.

Lovingly,
The daughter you left for dead.
(But we don't need to talk about that)