I used to think
if I could just find the right words,
the right tone,
the right version of myself,
maybe she’d see me.
Truly hear me.
And she’d stop.

But she never did.
She only saw
what she could use.

My illness became her ticket,
my pain,
her proof.

I was thirteen,
and already learning
that love could be a weapon.
Especially with her.

I learned
that love could bruise,
that “no” could be dangerous,
that my sudden defiance
could split skin.
My skin.

Silence was safer
than truth.
It became my survival.

I watched her
rewrite every boundary
until none of us
were real anymore.
Just ghosts
she borrowed
to feed her need.

Over two decades later,
her body is catching up
to what her spirit
decided long ago.

Her heart now damaged,
her skin starting to turn gray,
her words
sharp and slurred.
Every breath
another borrowed second
from a life
she’s burning through.

She has chosen this.
She chose the lies.
She chose to fade
long before her body began to.

Even when she was handed
a way out,
a rare chance,
she said no,
and kept running.
Straight towards the bottle,
towards the pills.

And it hit me so hard
my chest almost hurt.
But I finally accepted it.
It took me years
to see it clearly.
She made her choice
long ago.

A choice
she has always made.
And that choice
wasn’t me.
It wasn’t us.
She blamed us instead.

For over twenty-five years,
she has never picked us.

Now she’s chosen
to die slowly,
to disappear
by degrees.
To keep burning herself
and calling it living,
calling it warmth.

I can’t save her.
I can’t drag her
to the surface.
I’ve tried.

And I refuse
to let her cruelty
and darkness
drag me under
with her.

Never again.

I can only mourn
what could’ve been.
The mother I remembered before,
and the mother I imagined.

Mourn the love
that never learned to stay.

Letting go isn’t hate.
It’s mercy.
It’s survival.
It’s love, rewritten
in self-protection’s language.

My mother
is a brutal storm
I never want
to survive again.

Her love
isn’t what love should be.
It became violent,
vicious,
and frightening
most of the time.

I will always care.
I will always love her.
That will never change,
despite everything.

But I don’t think
I’ll ever stop grieving her
and all that she’s destroyed
over the years.

I had to let her go.
Not out of hate,
but out of self-preservation.

Because love
isn’t meant
to be swallowed
with poison.

I deserve
to live
in a house,
in a world,
not built
from someone else’s destruction.