Before Reading
This piece contains themes of childhood abuse, fear, and traumatic memory. It is offered as witness, not instruction. Read gently and stop whenever you need to.
I don’t believe I am like you Mom. As a child I had an endless craving and need for your attention and affection. I know you were a busy career woman with so much to prove and I was so proud of that. The community, the children, the students, they needed you. Rah Rah Rah.
I needed you the most. Pero no te importe. Pardon my language, pero como quien dice. Le valio madres a mi madre.
You didn’t care that I needed you to. Or maybe you didn’t know how to care for your only daughter. I had something so important to tell you. So I wrote notes, little stories to you. Do you know how long it took me and how many times I put that note together for you? The notes I used to put under your pillow, that you ignored. Do you, Mama? I think that’s where I got my start as a writer. God knows I had to be. I had to be a good persuasive writer, too because I had to captivate your interest. I knew I had to invoke that little light of love that I know you had for me somewhere. I knew I had to be great in order to cause you to dig deep into that little pocket in your heart that I know you had a place for me in. This note it had to be perfect.
I filled up a wastebasket with the stupid ones, that didn’t make sense. But the final one, when it was ready, it was tucked away at Mom's pillow, assuring that it was not my dad’s because this note was not for him. I had to tuck it strategically underneath her pillow. Because if I tucked it away too far up too secretly well, she might not see it and just sleep on it, literally. Then it would be right under her, and she wouldn’t even know. Similar to the circumstances surrounding my life at the time, happening, tucked away far from her awareness. If in fact, she didn’t find the note off to sleep my mom would drift off, safely cloaked and surrounded by silence, into the buttery silent night next to and within the safety of my father, she was protected and safe.
As she slept, a few rooms over I was awake, oftentimes gripped by fear and anxiety. I was taken over by the awareness of my unsafety, my terror, and my nightmares. For he was close enough to me to creep in and hurt me again in those ugly ways that I hated. I knew it wasn’t right and I didn’t want it to go on. I tried to tell my mom what was happening.
Right there on that note mommasita was maybe the key to bridging the gap in our relationship. Maybe you’ll be filled with emotion and tears and take me up and squeeze me and embrace me so tight! You’d tell me you had no idea, and you’d stop the violations that were happening to me.
I took origami level care in folding the note so pretty. “To Mom” in the front real big, print, not cursive. With a huge broken heart colored in crayon. No, too dramatic. I crumbled it up and wrote it again, no heart, less emotion. My mom wasn’t good with emotions and always said don’t cry.
I finally planted very ninja-like, the note into the very outermost corner under where the pillow meets the bed. I did it. I hope she doesn’t notice it when my dad is there. That would be a mortal calamity. My Dad, he’s my everything, my moon, my stars, my source of unconditional love, all that was good and sacred in my life. He was the pillar in my life that gave me hope.
He told me that My Dad would think I was the dirtiest girl in the universe and that he would be so ashamed of me he’d send me to Mexico forever. No way I could risk that, but I did have to tell SOMEONE. This is why this mission was so important. I've already forgotten about the past and what happened with my last letter. She never even opened that one and I remember rationalizing to myself that it was because I didn’t make it artistic enough or present it well, or it was a day where she was at a school board meeting late or work demands left her too tired. Or perhaps she was tired and worn out from the kids at the high school where she was the principal, that took 3 licks from her famous paddle which donned her name.
That paddle had small holes in it. Indeed. So many holes, but not nearly as many as the ones that would forever torment my soul if I'm not able to unite with my mother and get her to just love me.
So, it was done, mission accomplished, note planted, now I’d wait for an eternity for a response. I told her that if she wanted to talk to me that I would be waiting under my favorite tree.
The sun crept down slowly, and the moon shined so bright and no sign of my mom, day one, day two, nothing.
I pulled at her skirt as she was deeply enthralled in a conversation concerning the presidential campaign. What if she addresses it out loud, I thought, everyone will hear, and she will laugh at me when I leave the room. No seas tan mala. Ven paka mija… I heard her friends so so often, telling my mom not to be so mean.. They would call me over and often give me a big hug as I watched my mom carry on, oblivious and probably glad that someone else, one of her friends were tending to me..
In my usual manner, I get frustrated. What did the note even say, I can't even remember, I told her I wanted to tell her something important that I was very sad as I draped the entire page with raindrops actually teardrops from a little cloud I drew at the top. With a girl, I also cried. Red flags wouldn’t you think?
When I was upset, I didn’t hold back, I lashed out at her and I told her exactly like it was “You never pay attention to me, you don’t care about me you don’t! Why did you even have me huh? Melissa get back here right now!” Oh, what a hopeless child I was, how easy sit was to turn my little light on, hope came to me in a flash, but it went just as quickly. She called me back to tell me, to stop it, that she saw the note, yes, yes. Yes okay.
“No seas chiflada Melissa, no tienes nada.” Was her response. I’m a spoiled brat and there is nothing wrong with me.
How can you not see that there is so much wrong with me? Did she understand the calamity of these brushoffs or dismissive shrug-offs. Did she know that these moments, right here right now are the expansively profound and determinant moments in my life? What if her response had been different, it would have changed so many things. I was being abused right under her nose. I tried to tell her. She never listened.
I marched very slowly back go to my room, I knew this solemn march very well, as it seems that my long hair draped the ground behind me, heavily, so heavily.
As I dragged my feet across the carpet, I fixated on its every yellow thread and I wanted to morph into it and be a part of it because I related to it, it’s a carpet and I am a doormat. We both get trampled on and ignored.
Like a ton of bricks is this burden that I was eager to share with my mother. And she dares to shout, pein ate ese pelo. Comb my hair, this long silky mom behind me.
Maybe that will get her attention. I’ll cut my long locks off. I know what I’ll do, and this will get her attention. I don’t remember exactly how many days but the following week, I had my very own hair cutting conference in my room, my dolls, barbies, even some of the fur off the teddy bears if I could get a hold of it. Chopped it, chop, chop, chop straight off and I loved to watch it fall and carcass to the ground. I even felt a strong urge to chop off the heads of the dolls too. Make some heads roll.
I recall, that in a very ominous type of move as of course as always, I was starring in the movie in my mind and acting it out, I needed to get some oomph for my current hair slicing project, so I kept glancing into the mirror and slowly Id step closer and closer and closer, fixing my gaze on that little girl in the mirror. Who was she? Does she even know?
Dear sweet child if I could hold you close right now, I know that look so very well even today. That wholesome despair, that spirit of not understanding, the fear, the anxiety. Sweet child. I didn’t recognize myself I remember I searched, and I couldn’t find a trace of me.
This was not her, this one was dirty and had messy hair, she wasn’t wanted is what I thought. I need to be someone else right now.
I fixate on the scissors on the ground, and with the most certain, razor-sharp, intent; bold precision I hold them to my bola de pelo, my knot of hair, and I cut and cut and cut, and with every cut to my loathed and lonesome locks, I felt lighter, Like I was coming to myself.
With each stroke of the scissors, I felt further away from the girl in her bedroom when the ugly boy came and stole her smiles and stole her unicorn dreams away from her.
For there was a time when only fantasy, glitter, music, singing, dancing, musicals and fun filled her mind. Now her mind kept getting real dark sometimes, and it left a blot of black in her head. If she could stamp those thoughts out like the teacher did when she got an A on her paper or a super stamp on her report card.
It made her feel disgusting. To this day, I can smell the smell of the sweat and the taste of salt as it dripped from the white carcass that shifted like an elevator on top of me, up and down, soon it will stop. It will stop soon. This was the last floor and he’d get off of me and I’d be entangled stuck between the floors, unsure of I should cry, it felt so ugly, and the cry was circling all over my body and wanted to spill out! But it got caught and it turned into a sort of angry acceptance. So angry, just get out.
Care bear panties slung at my ankles. Care bears, do you all even care for me? You are not real, for no one cares for me. Maybe my unicorn does because I stared at him during the “practice” and he took me away for a while and let my mind be stamped, so I could forget. Sweet unicorn, you don’t look so white anymore, and all the glitter and the rainbows in your wing, they don’t shine so sparkly anymore.
What are the big deals with unicorns anyway, That’s for little spoiled babies. I don’t want to sleep with you tonight or ever, but let me borrow your glitter, I’ll use it over my eyelids for the next 30 years because I’ll never feel like I’m good enough.
There is never enough glitter to cover it all. Never enough sparkle shiny enough or bright enough to cover it all up. I don’t want to be pretty. Pretty hurts sometimes, pretty makes them see something different and they want to take it, they’re overcome by it. It turns into something evil.
I realized that even after I cut off all my hair, the black smudge will always be there. So, I pick it up and carry it for it’s a part of me now and always will be.
I wish you had read the note, mom. Maybe you did and you couldn’t handle what I was saying. I will never know. But I forgive you for it. And I set you, him and myself free now. We are free.
Cir 1983-84s