“you do not listen the way you’re meant to, you only accept things you are okay with giving up, but you would never accept something you have not already examined and understood,” i say in a flurry of bitter love to my mother.
she scrambles, and parts of me, the apple seeds she buried in my chest when my bones were still too soft, ache with guilt, blossom with poison apples, but i leave them to rot while ignoring my grumbling stomach.
this is not love, i think, because an offer of nutrition shouldn’t **** you before the food can give you life to begin with. ah, eve, i get it now, the temptation of belonging.
“she won’t change her mind, but i argue anyway because it’s all i can do,” my sister recounts, and it loops through my head at that moment. i realize this argument is selfish, it’s only for me, payment, because if i cannot have love, then at least i have this proof that i tried, that i came close to changing her, tried to make her love me.
yet, that’s what makes it sting the most. the fact that i tried and tried, kept eating apple after apple, hoping, praying that the next wouldn’t be bitter, and never tasted sweetness. what burns in my throat, the acid coating my esophagus is this: how i will always be almost there, so close, criminally near to winning her over, but it will never be enough. in another life, i comfort, but that’s the thing, not in another life, because i will always be so close and yet not. almost almost. yet never enough.
in math, .999... is considered 1 because it continues on, and since it never stops, there is no space between, no number you can get if you subtract from one another.
like this, so goes my attempts to be loved. as long as i do not stop, do not look back, do not look down, then i will be almost there, almost 1, almost enough, so why stop? as soon as i do though, as soon as i realize the truth, realize my chasing, my ellipses, are not me, are not me she’s loving, i become .999 and not 1. it is a curse in and of itself because nobody will ever be able to prove how close i am to changing her mind, but they will be able to see i wasn’t enough when i walk away. don’t you see, sister, that this is why we do not stop arguing, for our two choices are defeat or death, you decide.
our stubborn pride claws at my tongue, bids me not to speak, hates the taste of such a near-victory, with the knowledge that i’ll never experience the real thing.
oh it burns, burns like alcohol on a freshly poisoned throat, to resign yourself to the fate that your mother will never love you, not all of you, not the you that matters, that laughs and loves, not unconditionally, not universally.
sister, this is not pity nor contempt. most days i do not give chase, but even i, invulnerable and real, rush to slip my shoes on and fly out the front door, leaving it open, almost closed, because i know i’ll come back worn and tired, alone, never satisfied, only ever in pain.
we talk about our worst fears: hip displacement, ****** degloving, broken jaws, and the reddit list goes on. our family has bad genes with bones, i concur, and my brother pops my statement back into place, “our family has bad genes in everything.” it is not a bitter correction, a true one, a tradition to claim at least once a week for us, one i used to bark in scorn, one i now laugh at hearing from others’ mouths because really, what else can i do? it is spoken in all it’s neutral beauty, a holy psalm, as the shepherd does watch over his flock, so does bad luck with our family.
seemingly, it is a new tradition, brought upon by me and moved into by the youngsters behind me, a christmas memory, a vacation, a spring break that the older adults have accepted, stopped fighting, because when have they done anything useful like patch us up? i do not scold the kids for their harsh words; how could i, when i was the first to do such things? if anything, this is the one area of complacency i refuse to bow to. i may not be able to silence those who take away their voice, but i will always be a person they can scream at.
“what do you want me to do?” my mom breaks. the miserable child in me pleads, “i don’t know, just fix it!” but i say, “it doesn’t matter.” because it doesn’t, not now, not really, there’s something, someone, multiple people in fact, to fix, but it’s too late. too late to repair the trust, the trust you never tried to build and didn’t care to grieve, not until the obituary caught your eye in a scrapbook three years down the line. it grates on my heart, but i do not break, do not shatter like the child she wants me to be, the child she wants to manipulate and twist to her delight, the child she didn’t want to properly raise. instead, i quietly rage, how dare she try to play the victim, as if she has room at all to play hurt when i’m the one who was left to rot. left to pick up the pieces and protect the others with my bullet-ridden body, a child soldier at its core. it does not matter, i repeat, because it does but it can’t. there’s no fixing it, so there’s no way it could’ve been fixed.
i’m an adult now anyways, old enough to recognize that there are none of the angels i wanted to come rescue me, no adults like that, none of the ones i always knew never really existed, but it’s always easy to act like they’re not with you rather than not here at all, so i’ll do all i can to be one for others, be something for others. i’m not much for war, but i’m good for a human shield and sabotaging plans behind enemy lines, so use me like this: as an advantage, a defense, a way to keep living, a way to get through to the next trench, an informant to learn from, a person to train with until you’re ready, until you’re healed enough for the next battle. i cannot stop this war, but *******, i can fight in it.