Left Unread

Your eyes strain as you write your words, selecting the lies, forgetting the truths, power, hot and wicked, running through you. What a rush you must feel when clicking send. A year and a half of nothing but charged silence, yet now you write, “It is impolite not to give me news.”

I hate that I stare at my screen, the blue light blurring, more tears wasted on your incompetence to care for a child. I hate that I wasted my energy and voice trying to send waves of comprehension through that thick skull of yours, but I finally understand that my efforts were made in vain. A glimpse of guilt in those shallow, smug eyes? No, I see absolutely nothing but the boring brown you gifted me with.

“I will always be there for you, just as I told you,” you write me. I wonder, do you flinch when you lie, or has it come so instinctively, just as second nature? I hope you sleep soundly on your pillow of lies, your cigarette smoke curling around your burnt lungs and lethal lips. 

Keep justifying the unjustifiable – let’s see how long you can twist my words. You might think the knife is pointing towards me, but my dear, the knife is double-edged. You believe I have no voice or way to defend myself. Pry on the defenseless. Not the worst idea of yours, but you chose the wrong sheep to kill. 

Stop wasting your breaths, telling your friends of your insubordinate daughter. Truth be told, you look pathetic doing so. You looked just as pathetic when your forked tongue slipped out of your teeth, grinning and laughing, bragging about the new punishment you came up with last night. Master manipulator, so I don’t blame your friends, they don’t know any better.

You push my buttons as a child would in an empty elevator. The real question is, does the yellow light of the circular control offer more of a high than your pack of smokes you left me alone for? I hope you are proud that every time I smell Marlboro Lights my stomach screams and my head flips. Every time I see the pack I can smell the stale dead smoke exiting your lungs. What a great mother-daughter moment. Such bonding times. You were not much of a drunk, though, at the blooming age of 11, it’s hard to say if you naturally slurred your words or some other form of intoxication. You only slurred at night after downing a couple of blue cans that smelled of gut-churning ick. 

“I am your family,” you wrote me. Recalling correctly you spat the exact words “Guess what? You just lost your only mother!” Pretty contradicting for such strong and polar statements. You contribute to unnecessary sound pollution and my inbox space, please stop. 

Is there more to say? Your threats are empty and you cannot hurt me. Try, and try again, pretend you love me, but when everyone saw you passed me without saying ‘hello’ it was pretty self-explanatory. Have some decorum and pride or whatever’s left of it, and scoot yourself over to your next victim.