A story about my mother

She begs her 80 year old father and 30 year ex husband for money
While she sits in her bedroom, tangled in boxes and hangers holding half a million dollars

She has no money to feed her dog
But has enough to treat herself to next day left overs of branzino and nails to comfort her insecurities for a wedding she doesn’t want to attend

Her scarcity prevents her from using a real trash can so she lines the floor with paper bags and increases her trips to the trash chute

She doesn’t care to walk her dog yet her mind makes space for the schedule of his bowel movements while she complains of the stench of his urine from her balcony

She complains she has too much on her mind when she refuses to allow a crack of silence to enter
She says her mind is filled and she has no solution when she smothers her ears with the sounds of voices and thoughts that are all but her own
Until she explodes
Tears and yelling
Throwing and breaking
Hoping that it’s okay, that it’s acceptable
That’s what family does
when they’re stressed

So she finds a way to create order—
Her daughter
She asks her to fulfill a task, any task
Asks her again, just to hear her confirm
Just to feel a thread of control
She uses the moment to direct her anger towards an object out of place, a thing she’s decided is the reason of her pain
When she storms off
Leaving residue in the air

And so it’s time for her to leave
She says she doesn’t want to go
She says she’s tired
She says she’s bleeding
Her eyebrows locked in tension
She asks “do I look good?”
I wonder “does she feel good?”
“It doesn’t matter. Do I look good?”
Before I could answer
“How are my legs?”
“They’re fine”
One more time
“Really. Look. Do they look good?”
I’m looking at her face
“Yes”
 She leaves

There’s nothing I can do
There’s not a time I can share with her what I see
She hasn’t made the space in her mind to handle the pain
She hasn’t given her ears a break
She finds comfort in the stress of it all
She rather drown and be saved
Like she always has
But this time, nobody is coming to save her
It’s up to her to save herself