Photo by Valeria Almaraz on Unsplash

I thought you should know I’m still fat.
I thought you should know I found that thing you wrote about Chonita.
You told me once you’d never had a friend, and I don’t think you did.

I thought you should know this house feels safe.
That I stay up at night writing again like I used to.
That I tripped over the dog in the hall in the dark and we both comforted each other.
That I am never going to find someone to love me like you did.
And I can’t be more grateful for that fact.

- - -

What do we say to our dead mothers who never loved us properly and who we never loved properly in return? I’m sorry for the $1.75 I stole from your purse for a Good Humor Bar Daniella bit into with her teeth like a cartoon character in the baking hot streets, where even the lawn is hot on the back of my legs, and the back of my shoulders. Where the grass in my hair smells like sunlight and asphalt, and Good Humor.

I am sorry for the time I pushed Cynthia’s brother because he called you a whore and I’m sorry for the times I didn’t care that you were. More like I couldn’t care any more than I already did. All the caring for you boiling over into yelling, into door slamming, into leaving and never coming back.