5"The ones who don't do anything are always the
ones who try to pull you down."
- Henry Rollins
Take a walk into a world of opportunities.
Sure. I'll take a walk. As long as it's away from you.
Don't tell me to make something of myself.
You can't make something from nothing.
Anything I ever had was ripped out of my hands and given to someone else. Not that I ever had much.
You don't know what it's like to be me. To be told to make something of yourself when you only want to crawl under the covers and never get up. I don't want to be something.
It doesn't matter.
Life doesn't matter.
Nothing matters.
A constant downpour of fear and uncertainty is what my future is destined to be.
I remember watching you play scratch card Bingo every night. There was no food in the house but there was always a lottery ticket.
To get our hopes up you would pretend you won. Let us dream about what we would buy. Then you brought us crashing back to earth with a simple word
"GOTCHA".
Thank you mother.
Thank you for showing me that people like us don't win the lottery. We don't deserve it.
You can't make something from nothing.
Eventually I figured out your little tricks. But you had to keep teasing your others kids. You made them believe that things would get better.
But they never did.
Nothing ever gets better.
You can't make something from nothing.
Do you remember how many different boyfriends you had? I remember at least six.
There was the one that was always drunk, the one that walked around in his underwear and the one that came over in the middle of the night asking you to hide him.
The one I remember most vividly is Jay? He still comes over once in awhile, with little bags of white powder.
Hmm, I wonder what that is Mother.
You can't make something from nothing.
You stole my adolescence from me. You took it for yourself. You never did like getting older.
I've never been to a party. I've never had any friends. I've never known what it's like to be free of responsibility.
You can't make something from nothing.
I never had anything, and I never will. When I turn eighteen, you won't be legally responsible for me anymore. I'll be sucked into oblivion. And believe me I won't be coming back for a visit. I bet you can't wait until the day you are free again.
What will you do on that day Mother? Try out a new drug?
I know, how about ecstasy. It'll make you look younger, I swear.
You can't make something from nothing.
I hate relying on you. It's like living in a cardboard house. There is nothing to do but wait for the walls to get so rotten that they fall over and leave me vulnerable to whatever decides to come my way.
But despite everything, I liked you better when you were stoned or drunk than when you were sober. At least you didn't look at me with contempt in your eyes.
I don't even think you knew how much your life sucked. I seemed like you loved living in a one-bedroom apartment with roaches and brown carpet that was worn through. I thought you liked having to shake your shoes before putting them on just in case there was a spider inside.
You never did anything to make it better.
Never painted the walls.
Never washed the crusty dishes.
Never even hung your clothes up let alone wash them.
You can't make something from nothing.
I loved sleeping on the pull out couch that smelled like old food and stale mystery cologne.
I hope you enjoyed your king sized bed Mother.
Thanks for sharing.
The guidance counselor at school told me there are thousands of possibilities out there for me.
College.
Wall street.
Hollywood.
Outer Space.
The top of Everest.
I could do anything.
Yeah. Right.
I'm drowning in possibilities.