Mother May I By Anthony Garcia
How far away is this light is certainly what was rather cumbersome to me. How much more of this reciprocal of a happy, healthy, warm childhood could I bare; and how much longer would I even strive to care. When would the apathy swallow me up in thick blankets of dark grey. Everything is shades of grey, but apathy always tends to lean toward black; as did the patchwork disaster of bruises on my guilty canvas that always screamed for more. When would I ever get to catch a breath, and when was it okay to say enough is enough. To God I would pray, not for her love or approval, but simply for her absence. I wished for her to be like what people claim as the stereotypical deadbeat father, never there, emotionally unable to care. But no, it just would not or could not be. She was my mother, appointed by generations of woman’s intuition to be a loving, supportive,
caretaker to me. She was far from it, lovingness must not have been embedded in the Quinn’s genetic code. A mother should never raise a fist unless to comb a straying strand of hair. They should never speak so razor-edged, they should instead want to plant a platoon of kisses. She was most definitely not a normal mother, for every withdrawal shake there was a welt on my face. What stings the most is that on top of all the hurt and pain she proved to be just another link in that never-ending, ever-rusting chain that binds us bastards together.
