Dear Mother
My hips are wider than you had hoped — comfort eating had become my friend through the voyage of our time together. 14 years. That’s a long time for any relationship, yet a slender slice on the mother-daughter horizon.
I was growing into my own. I had launched in height well above any of our ancestors and that frightened you. You were controlled by the fear that came as my breasts enlarged past the respectable C cup and into the promiscuity of an E cup. The fear that I would lead a life similar to the one you fought hard to portray you were proud of. A life defined as a single mother at 19, endangered by a man whose last name you could be unsure of. An existence dictated by survival as your second husband, my father, pressed the cobbles of his knuckles against your temple, with all his might. A life that meant you scrubbed the floors of strangers bathrooms, your knees locked to the ground with a blissful knowledge that this is where they truly belonged. In fear of this life, words like “whore”, “witch”, and “wicked” danced on your tongue through opportune passages. These words were not strangers on the morning that changed our beings, crumbled our dynamic, and simply ruined our relationship.
7:34 am, Friday 9th July 2010, a morning to remember. My phone bill had run higher than our monthly budget could accommodate. You were filled with rage, I was pained with regret. You spat your venomous words and when their impact was felt no more you graduated to using the cobbles of your knuckles, just like my father, to run again the plump flesh of my cheeks, just like your father. I collapsed to the ground defeated, comforted by the familiarity of my injuries, similar to a basketball team losing the qualifying game after being beaten every year before.
You commenced your morning ritual to prepare for your second 48-hour shift of the week. I commenced a foreign routine; hair washed, shirt ironed — it was school picture day. You return to our shared room with a new burst of fury, demanding I run your clothes through the iron press. I ask you to wait as I ran the last of the moisturiser across my exposed breasts. I sit on the bed naked as you run impatient with my sluggishness and before I can react I place into a fetal position with face pressed firmly in our mattress. You have taken to whipping me with the doubled over cable of our blowdryer. I scream for help as you place lashes on my arms, back, and legs. In a moment of clarity, I question whether you can hear my screams. Am I being muffled by my tears? I gather all the strength I have and turn to face you. Your eyes are wild with rage but I look beyond them to utter the words, as clearly as I can;
Mum, please.
You look me in the eye and bellow the phrase
I wish I had aborted you.
And you continue with your assault.
As I navigate through my roaring 20s, I count the men that have stolen from me. My right to say no. My right to love without violence. My right to jump without falling.
However, as my knees kiss the marble ground of alien bath titles in panic and fury, I refused to scrub, because I knew I did not belong here and for that, I am grateful for you.
