I loved them. Trust me, I did. I loved them more than the ocean loved the shore. How could I not love them? They were my babies, my little ones.
I loved them through every heartache, every wound because that’s what we mothers are supposed to do, isn’t it?
At least that’s what they say.
At least that’s what I believed.
That’s what I believed when I saw all my friends with their moms, their homes, their support systems, their shoulders to lean on when it got too hard, someone who told them that it was okay to fall, someone who helped them get back up when they fell.
I believed she would come around one day or the other. I believed she’d hold me and kiss my cheeks, I just had to be patient. Just one more day, one more week, one more month, one more year and she’d look at me the way she looked at the beer can in her hand, with love and longing. I waited for her everyday. I waited for her every second.
I longed for her love, the feeling, so strong it engulfed my whole being, it thrummed against my chest like a second heart. I did everything to get her to love me, to know me, to see me.
I starved myself unconscious when I was 10, thinking that maybe seeing her only child so frail and thin would get her to stop, thinking that she’d come frantic and teary and get me ice cream, that she’d apologise over and over, so in my last moments before unconsciousness took me wholly, I smiled.
I smiled when I finally gained consciousness with needles in my wrist and ache in my whole body, I didn’t mind as long as it got her to me. Any second now, I remember thinking, any second now and she’ll barge in with tears lining her face but she never came, I waited ages to see her there but she never came. I sat there scratching my arms until they bled. At last the door opened but it wasn’t her, it was a police officer who took me home and didn’t even bother to look back.
I barged in with all the force I could muster and dropped to my knees when I saw her there, sitting on the couch with a beer can in hand, watching TV. My eyes stung, tears fell onto my knees, I shook violently as I tried to control my sobs.
I stopped believing after that day. I stopped trying. I fought with her regularly not because I hated her, but because I had to make her feel something for me, it didn’t matter that it was hate. Didn’t matter that she hit me every time we fought, slammed my little head into walls and glass. Didn’t matter that she kicked me and ripped off chunks of my hair and scratched my neck in an attempt to strangle me. I couldn’t stop loving her. I could never stop loving her.
I looked at my reflection with awe after fights. The more the scars, the better. I touched every bruise and drop of blood that I could reach. I kissed every wound that I could.
“I love you. I love you. I love you. Hear me? I love you.” I murmured against them.
I never treated them. I made sure they didn’t close. I made sure they never healed. I made sure I never healed.
I made sure that I carried a part of her everywhere I went and so when she died of cancer when I was 16, I made sure to never let go of her ashes. I talked to what remained of her, I fought with her.
I had them when I was 17. Two tiny little humans. They looked just like her and so I loved them. I loved them like they were her. They looked like her but they never hated me, they loved me just like I loved them.
I thought then,
This is it. This is how it’ll all end. She’s showing that she loved me through them. She loved me.
But I was wrong once again. So fucking wrong. How could I be so naive? How could I trust them when they looked just like her? How could I trust her again?
They started distancing themselves from me. They didn’t need me like they used to anymore. They started doing stuff on their own. I was losing her again. She was slipping from my hands again.
No no no no no
I couldn’t let that happen again. She needed to feel me again. I started fighting her again but this time, I was the one who slammed her head against the walls. I was the one who slapped her until she sputtered blood. I was the one who scratched her skin until they were covered in bloody bruises. I was the one who gagged her with my fingers. I was the one who ripped out her hair. I was the one who hit her with a rubber belt over and over. I was the one who held her head under the water until she turned blue.
She was finally seeing me, feeling me. Yes yes. I kissed her wounds after every beating. I made sure they never healed. I made sure she never healed. She had to remember me.
And she did, even as she finally succumbed to her wounds she couldn’t stop looking at me. They couldn’t stop looking at me.
So you see, she loved me. I loved her and so I also loved them.