Dear Mom,

Growing up with an alcoholic mother would be hard, if such a thing existed. Yet there only exists an alcoholic, who wears your mothers clothes, and speaks like your mother does, yet the words aren't as clearly pronounced, and all that is left is an addict wearing your mothers skin as a costume. 

 

You learn to never expect anything. Rides home from work aren't an option, then all of a sudden it's been 2 years since you've asked for advice, and even longer since you've asked for help with homework. You learn that any conversations past 4 pm were a waste of time and breath. You learn to be independent, searching for any means to be out of the house once the bottle unscrews, the words flowing as slurred and sloppily as the wine does. You learn to never have people over the house, out of embarrassment and shame.

 

Perhaps you'll gain 10 pounds, eat your emotions then hate yourself for failing to control the one aspect of your life that you could. Then you'll put your fingers down your throat, a feeling both distant and familiar, and feel even weaker for caving.

 

Perhaps you'll start smoking, relying on the first hits to release your mind from all of the hurt and emptiness that ironically fills you in places your mom hasn't in years. You'll exhale the pain, and for a few blissful moments, you'll forget why you were upset to begin with. 

 

Perhaps you'll seek shelter in your room, door closed, candle lit, music playing in a desperate attempt to muffle the bullshit that pours out of her mouth in a stream of incoherent thoughts and ideas. 

 

Perhaps you'll grow angry, first at her then yourself; all she talks about is missing you once you go away. But she never talks to you, never spends time with you that she complains she will lose, leaving you to feel as irrelevant and unimportant as the doormat. 

 

But I still love you more than life itself. And because of that, I've never felt so torn.

 

Your daughter,

 

Alexis Lape