by River Austin
Well, ey, oh, my Mother locked herself in the bathroom again.
She’s back, no money, no liquor, drinking isopropyl again.
The bitch is outside my room, scratching my door, calling me a pussy again.
She’s crashing her Camaro and getting a new one again.
I can’t take this shit, I run away, I come back, when will it end?
Well, ey, oh, I slashed her brand new tires like the doctor slashed my umbilical cord.
Don’t look at me like that? She broke my heart long before I cut hers. I’m not the villain nor the hero; Just mommy’s little fucking zero.
She makes me so sick I could fucking puke, like she does when I’m holding her hair back from the toilet. And every other thing I’ve done for her while she was drunk and didn’t give a fuck.
I blame her and she blames me. I didn’t ask to be born, but that shit is so goddamned trite it makes me wanna stab my eyes out with golden pins.
There’s a certain flow and rhythm to the trauma she puts me through. It all makes sense within the context of the story she?s trying to tell.
I never mattered. I was nothing more than a bargaining tool: a shitty reflection that eventually talked back.
I didn’t give a shit no matter what she did. Maybe the problem is my apathy? She smoked meth, she snorted coke, she drank her way to the moon and back. She indebted herself on clothes, dogs, horses, cars, anything and everything and doesn’t keep them for long. As a child she lied about my cracked head, she cut my penis with her nail, she separated my shoulder, tearing me away from my dad. I think she shot my eye with an air rifle, she said it was an accident. By the way she never gave me lunch money, so I went to school with an empty tummy.
She’s done much and more. My first bully was her.
This was just a taste. I’m proud to be Native, but our generations are starting to waste.
Oh shit, my bad, I’m sorry! Did I rant about my Mother again?
River Austin is a weird-fiction writer from Southern Oregon, US. He’s been published in a number of literary presses and anthologies since he began writing. He is a Wyandotte and Klamath/Modoc American Indian. Spends his days working on a legal cannabis farm as security. Follow him on Twitter @Catch22Fiction.
