Mom

I've thought about you a lot lately. Thought a lot about how I hate you. How I hate myself for being so much like you. It's been 7 years and you are still here. Living inside me like a reoccuring nightmare. I overheard "pain is beauty" on Tuesday and was sent back to my childhood. You loved perfection and having your first daughter be born with a facial deformatity didn't meet your standards, did it Mom? You told me as a child you hid me under blankets in public so people wouldn't see your monster. 13 painful surgeries that ruined my childhood and it never made me into what you wanted. Being ten vomiting blood from bone grafts gone wrong, was one hell of a way to spend my summer nights. "What did you do on summer vaction?" they'd ask the first day back to school. Most kids spent their days in the sun warming their skin on sandy beaches with their parents and siblings. Me? I spent mine waking up from anestheia alone in a cold hospital searching the room for your unforgiving eyes. I knew you wouldn't show. I don't know why my hope-filled eyes even looked. My last surgery at 18 you pointed out everything still wrong with my face to the doctor like the bump on the bridge of my nose that I didn't ever know I had. (It was just like yours, is that you hated it so much Mom? Couldn't stand to see a piece of yourself in a monster like me?) They didn't fix it and now it's all I can see in the mirror. Gone seven years and when I see the bump, your right back behind me whispering hateful words in my ear about how you never wanted me. " you ruined my life" you'd say through your Marlboro stained teeth. Vodka pouring off your breath as your speech slurred your hateful words. I hate myself because I am just like you. I notice everything wrong with my face. I hate myself enough for both of us now. The thing I hate the most about myself now is how much I miss and love you.