my relationship with my mother has never been good. it has never been easy. i’ve always found myself to do my best when she is kept afar, and i don’t have to speak to her often. as i’ve been spending more time around her again, i can feel things getting bad again. things are bad with me and her. things are bad with me and myself. things are bad with me and my dad. i’d go into detail, but quite frankly living with her, and living with my own sick mind, is beyond exhausting. last night i saw her for the first time in about a week. within minutes of her arrival, we were arguing about an avocado, about how i’m useless and can’t do anything right, about how i’ll never be anything more than a big disappointment and that she hates me and regrets giving birth to me. a normal interaction for us, but it reminded me of some of our worst exchanges, sending me into a dark spiral of reading old text messages to my friends where i disclosed some of the most outrageous things that she has said, some of the most outrageous things i have ever heard. sometimes its hard to tell where her craziness ends and mine begins. she denies being anything less than the best, most loving mother, and it has always been hard for me to accept that she is not fully to blame for my struggles, that i myself have to be held accountable, but its just as hard to not believe her when she tells me she hates me, that all of the bad things are my fault, etc. etc. the darkest, most confusing spiral.

we love our mothers,
and the earth
for giving us life,
for providing for us,
and giving us a home.

logically, i should love myself,
for making decisions to create
the future that I want.
for feeding and taking care of my body.

but instead, I beat myself up
over every bad decision,
every mistake,
regardless of how much I enjoyed it,
or what i got out of it.

i despise myself,
for every morsel i eat,
for anything i ever do
to benefit only myself.
i thank my mother
for the opportunity to walk this earth,
yet hate myself for walking it.