letter to my mother

i'm never going to send this; i
don't let you read
anything
because it makes me feel better,
but also worse, like the day i
read those letters you'd
written, hidden away in the dark
somewhere
in a private folder
private
from me
private
from any eyes, but
i still read them
because

i am a bad daughter;
i forgot
about Mother's Day this year
i forgot
to buy you flowers
to take you for a walk
somewhere quiet, where
the brown of the mud on the
bottom of your old walking boots
matched the colour of the leaves
of the oaks and the cedars.
i forgot
to take you out for lunch where
i would pay even though the dessert alone was
six pounds twenty
and i still hadn't found
a job. and this,
this
is all because
i am not a good daughter
like i was back then, if i
ever even was one

because now i have
moved out
and
i'm cooking my own meals,
drinking too much coffee and
hiding within the walls of
myself; i've lost
count of the cigarettes
even though i know that the smell
of them on his shirt collar
makes you sick, you having to sleep
in an ashtray for a bed. but
i love it here. i love being
so far away
and
not having to be home on time
not having to let you use the computer
not having to wipe down the table
load the dishwasher
listen to your arguments
sit at the top of the stairs and
overhear him screaming
at the baby, - she doesn't know any
better, does she?

- but this is not to say that i don't
miss you. i just prefer it when you treat me
like a grown up; talk to me about
politics
and
journalists
and
his mother's terminal cancer
because i do understand, i
really do. i like it when we
lean against the radiator and i
put an arm around you - because
i am so much taller now - and
i lean in and feel your
whisps of grey hair fall against
my cheek, and you read me articles about
cheap red wine
george clooney - your favourite
silver fox - and how expensive clothes
are from the Saturday paper.

please don't ever believe that you are
useless
or
not worth something
because you are, regardless of the
things he says sometimes when
he's full of Jameson's that make me want
to dirty my fists. you are the
cleverest person i know. i wish
to be like you
as strong as you
as ever-dissatisfied as you. you
have been through more shit than
anyone else i know. you are
better
than anyone else i know, and i want
to be able to know what all of these
long words mean when my kids
are reading Milan Kundera
and ask me to be
their dictionary. i want them to
admire me as i have always
admired you,

i hate it when we
break down, because
W E A R E N O T A B R O K E N F A M I L Y;
we just need
T I M E
and
P A T I E N C E
and
E A R S
and
H E A R T S
to calm down and
stop fucking about. i promise
to stop if he stops and she stops too,

so please can we not have
Christmas this year - can we just
learn to love eachother again?