Empty-handed.

無題 by イチハラユウキ @Pixiv


10 Ways to Deal with A Drug Dealing Mother
1. Remember Mother knows best
and when she says
2. Don't tell anyone
you say
3. "Yes, Mother."

Because remember the basics
she still loves you
she loves you and that's why she's doing this

So when you're in the car, going out to lunch with her
and she gets a phone call,
4. You stay quiet and pretend you don't exist
while she hands over the chalkboard powder and he hands over three crumpled up bills
5. Try not to look.

Because, remember, you're not the only one
You haven't been forgotten
You haven't been left alone

6.

When your brother yells at you for neglecting to clean the bathroom
When your brother hits you
Remember
7. You can always forget
8. You have the rest of your life to forget

And when the first chance to leave presents itself
9. Slowly leave

and finally
10. Forget.


I don't know why, but recently, I just keep thinking about it.
I keep thinking about being drunk. Unable to stand. Being overly sad for things that aren't happening anymore.

I keep thinking about those moments I told other people, "My mother used to sell drugs."
And a sour taste keeps flooding into my mouth.

I don't want to tell them that, sometimes, she still does.
That sometimes, I have darker secrets than anyone knows.

I just don't want them to worry.
I've come out as the better person.
I can get better.
I don't want them to think I'm always sad, because I'm not.

Why am I so sad about this?
I wanted to kill myself when that was happening. I wanted to die.
I felt like the rest of the world was rotting, and the smell in my house could prove it, too.
My mother had forgotten me to sell drugs to strangers and whores, and she didn't think I was important enough to try to make the best of what we had.
She left me in the house we didn't own, with the dishes from last Christmas still sitting around on the kitchen floor in the middle of summer.
I didn't want to tell anyone.

Because what if
someone told someone else
and the police found out
and she was arrested.
Then what could I do?

I just graduated elementary.
I just turned 12.
I just started puberty.
I just found out my dad was with another woman for the past 8 years of my life.

I was just this little girl, with nothing else.

And nothing breaks me down faster than thinking about how hopeless, and useless, and scared I was during that time.
How alone I felt.

I had been forgotten and I wish I could have just forgotten myself.
I was too scared of death though.

So why am I so sad about this?
I don't know. I wish I knew exactly why, but I don't.
It just happens.

海