What was beauty unless you intended to use it, like a hammer, or a key? It was just something for other people to use and admire, or envy, despise. To nail their dreams onto like a picture hanger on a blank wall. And so many girls saying, use me, dream me.

Take my advice. Stay away from all broken people.

Never apologize. Never explain.

They say drugs are not the answer, but really, what is the question?

You were my home, Mother. I had no home but you

Who was I, really? I was the sole occupant of my mother's totalitarian state, my own personal history rewritten to fit the story she was telling that day. There were so many missing pieces. I was starting to find some of them, working my way upriver, collecting a secret cache of broken memories in a shoebox.

Kindness was the last thing she needed. She had to stay in the icy place, the numb place, and their warmth threatened to melt her just when she needed the cold.