You don’t know how much your words and actions broke me,
how they cut deeper than any scar could.

You never cared how I bled inside, only how it fit your story.
After every fight, you act like it never happened,
like to you didn’t rip me apart, like I’m not shaken from your storm.

But I am.
I am broken.

I hate you—
not the childish way, but the way carved from survival, from needing to protect a fragile heart you never learned to hold gently.

When you truly show me love, I don’t know what to do. It feels awkward, strange, like a trap, because your love always came with a cost.
I watch others— friends with mothers who smile without storms, who hug without fear, who speak without swords— and my heart aches, tightens with jealousy.

Why can’t I have that?
It’s not fair.

Every conversation with you
is like walking on glass— one wrong step and everything shatters.
I shrink,
scared of the woman who should have been my safe place.
The scars you left inside me are not healing
And I don’t think they ever will.

Stop telling me I’m not alone
Just because so many others feel alone
Meanwhile, none of you make me feel seen
And it’s my fault because I just cling
Onto a shred of affection or attention
And connections are sabotaged
By my own self,
By being my own self
People have tried to love me
And now they stay away
Because I can’t behave
I can’t get better in the name of a relationship
I can’t change myself at my core for you
And the you is interchangeable
I break and fix with patchwork
All to replace the one person who I loved first
Mother dearest you’ve left this wound
This shipwreck, and its sunken below
The sharks and fish swim in and out
And no one will ever know
That I was once afloat
I ask someone remembers me
How I was then,
But I cannot even do that myself
Because there was never a before you
And there’s been no after you
It’s perpetual, I still scream out your name
At night when I feel your presence wane
You’re a floor below
But no matter if we’ve leveled
I’ll never reach you
I want this version of you I created
That repaired the you that sullied me
To be so real, I won’t question it
And it never is
You might as well have died
Before I even got to know you
Because I’ve never had a mother
Just a woman who yelled then smothered
A woman who threatened then pampered
Inflated then deflated my worth
And it’ll never leave me
Your impact teases me
Even still, I miss you so
I miss the mom I made out of snow
I’m a creator
I make things my reality
Live it as if everyone is
Until I no longer can
I remember snowfall
In a desert like land
It’s easier to make you out of snow than sand

Everything hurts.
My face scrunching up as the tears burst out of me
The lump in my throat that prevents me from speaking
The thoughts I'm forced to face now that feel never ending.

No one thinks the unbelievable will happen,
Until it simply does.
and the responses I have in the moment-
make me feel incredibly ****** up.

Shock is more numbing than the walk in freezer at work.
It's as if I were reading anything, not her actual words.  
I don't know who to blame,
or maybe I do- but that feels worse.

“I need you close to me” said the porcupine
“I need space, I miss rabbit and fox” pled the squirrel
“Once I feel better you can leave”

“I’m lonely”
“Move closer, I’ll ease your isolation”
“Ok” Sting. Recoil.

“Why do you distance yourself from me?”
“Im sorry, it hurts”
“This is why you're in pain, you turn away from me”

“I just need a moment”
“Not until we're close”
“I’m bleeding, I need rabbits soft fur”

“Rabbit doesn't love you the way I do”
“Im anxious, I need fox’s kind words”
“Come near me, I will help you heal”

“Im worried about your spines”
“My spines? You think I have spines?”
“Don't you see them?”

“I don't know why you would say that to me,
I try so hard to be here for you”
“You're right, Im sorry”

The days pass by

Faster and faster

Turning into weeks

Months,

Years...


Not a single second

Minute,

Hour 

Or day goes by


That I don't think of you


That I don't wonder 


What life would be like

Today

With you still in it


I may not show it


I may not speak of it


But the longing is there

Deep within


... Always


I often reflect, 

Admire

The strength you had in my youth


No matter what was thrown your way

You tossed it onto your shoulders

And carried on

Head still high


I find myself carrying on the same way

Without you here

I've tossed your memories onto my shoulders

And keep on

Keeping on

Head held high


I can relate to you in that way

And somehow it keeps me close to you


There are layers

Too many to explain in depth

But I know

And I remember 

How life felt with you in it

And I reflect 

I relate


Because I was once 

A part of you


And now you...


Every second

Every minute,

Hour

Everyday

For forever


... Are a part of me.

Mẹ,

I am hurt by the way things have ended. How do you struggle with your second language, but know exactly what words jab at my dignity? The lack of “I love you”s as I grow up is justified, yet at the times you desire, you’re suddenly fluent in the language of breaking my heart. You articulate clearly and concisely, every syllable stabbing into my spirit as I swallow the lump in my throat. I still bite my tongue with remorse for growing into what you want to be. I choke down any remarks that would make you think less of me (less of you).

You compare me to the man who broke us, but I refuse to see him in the mirror. I have your left dimple, and my brother’s skin that contrasts yours so vividly like the branches that hold your dear orchids next to the porcelain in the glass closet that’s as fragile as your ego. My eyes come from what I have overcome, and the fire in my heart is God. I wish you saw His glory within me, and not the beast that you married.

I wish you weren’t so embarrassed of yourself. I wish you felt familiarity in a country as foreign as mine. For despite all you have done, I want to show you off. I am sorry for how you raised me. Most of all, I forgive you for all the apologies I never received. May you perceive yourself with grace.

Love,
your daughter