(i wrote this May 13th, 2001, Mother's Day)

No offense to my “mother”, but she isn’t one. She is and was, an egg for me, and even that very statement makes me want to cry, I shouldn’t feel like that at all, but I don’t feel, I just think, and the thinking is what makes me feel. I live with the woman this year, but I pay for all my own things. I am ‘eighteen now’, her boyfriend says. I ‘should be feeling guilty that I can’t contribute to the rent’.
I said to him “In all fairness, and technically, I am only sixteen years old. Because of you, I was forced to move out two years ago and now I am back, to finish school. Mom didn’t support me at all throughout that time.”
He moved on to bigger and better (uninformed. dull.) arguments.

Despite the very real fact that my quite conservative (in a very backwards way) mother is eternally reluctant to buy me food, (‘if you want to live an alternative lifestyle you should support yourself’, says the boyfriend again. Alternative equals fruit and vegetables daily.) she is more than willing to hand over my brother’s medication. He takes dexedrine for ADHD. I have clinical depression and/or PTSD (its really not as ominous as it sounds). I did not fancy Zoloft. I needed something to put a halt to my virtual narcolepsy, and my binge eating (nobody takes it seriously because I am not close to obese), and to help me concentrate. Amphetamines were the one.
I appealed to my Mom; she seemed to like the idea.
Perhaps so she might feel like she was ‘helping’ me through my mental illness, like a mother ought to. It’s funny that the act of her supplying me with unprescribed drugs should be the nicest thing she has ever done for me. If I had more parenting parents, I might have done all a number of rebellious and self destructive things by now.
The truth is, I cant afford to. Because if I starve myself, cut myself, sleep on the roof, they wont and don’t do anything. There’ll be no one there to bring me a plate of oranges or clean up my blood or even arrange my damn funeral. Or just to talk with. So common sense prevails and I resolve to look after myself. It is insane that I, by necessity, have to help myself out of a mental illness all alone.

Despite this, I bought my Mom a bunch of orange lilies, some extended play scratchies, Turkish Delights, (she loves them), and a pretty card (very last minute).
My brother gave her a kiss on the cheek.
I couldn’t.
She’s never showed me how.
But I sat next to her and wished so gleefully and fiercely that she would win $$$thousands$$$ on those scratchies.
I guess, on Mother’s Day, she didn’t deserve it.