Dear Mom,

I turned eighteen today. I turned eighteen. I cannot believe that I haven't seen you in ten years. Ten fucking years. You left me with an alcoholic father when I was eight fucking years old. Just eight. I wasn't even a teenager. I didn't know what the fuck to do with myself. Eventually I realized just how screwed up my father truly was. But did that make a difference to you? I doubt it.

Sometimes I wonder if you think of me at all. I know that you are on my mind every time I turn around. Images of you haunt my mind, the sad thing is I don't know if they're fact or fiction. I don't know if the 'memories' in my head are real or not. I don't know if everything I see before I go to sleep is a dream. I don't know. It tears my heart out, makes me feel like I want to cry whenever I see some little girl running toward a woman going, "Mommy, Mommy, look at this!" And the woman smiles like she's won the lottery, gotten the knight in shining armor. I wonder if you ever looked at me like that.

I used to blame myself for your absence. I used to think, if I had been a better child, if I hadn't gotten my dress dirty, if I helped cook and clean, if I . . . But the truth is you would have left anyway. And I would have had to cook and clean and be the adult anyway. When all my friends were starting to go out to parties (Yes Ma, despite your abandoning me, I actually managed to trust people again!) I was too scared to go. I was too scared of the alcohol. Another thing you took away from me was the joy of getting drunk the first time, partying. Dancing to loud obnoxious music.

I guess you want to hear about Dad. Well, he's doing great! For a corpse anyway. He died. Yesterday. The day before my eighteenth birthday. Apparently alcohol wasn't enough, he had to be a druggie too. He overdosed. I don't know what on, and neither do I care. He's dead. I guess I should feel something, but I don't. He never was much of father- even if he was all I had. Maybe that's not true, I had you for a while. I don't even know if we had fun during that short little while. Sometimes I think that if you had stayed, or taken me with you, I wouldn't be where I am now. Falling into poverty because I can't get a sports scholarship, and I definitely can't get one for academics, I barely squeak by in all classes.

I think that if I don't end up dying on the streets, if I don't become a hooker, if I'm not drawn into a gang, if I ever get a man who cares about me, I think that I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever have kids. This will be the last time I write. I've 'sent' you letters for ten years. I have all of them in a shoe box under my bed. I used to take them out and read them, all the time. I remember the first one I wrote, a month or so after you disappearance. Do you remember it? It went something like this:

Mommy when are you coming home? Daddy isnt very nice and i want you to make my favrite supper.

I cried when I reread it. It's misspelled, and messy and two sentences, but it's just so sad. You never came back Mom, you never made that supper. I'm not going to write another letter. Ever. You will never know what became of me. You won't know that even after all of this, even though I hate you so much, that there's a part of me that still loves you. I know you will never get these letters, but I hope you know. I hope you know.

Love,

Christine.

© Double I 4 My Guyz