mother (home sweet home)

I am home for the summer, and so far, it has felt like being untethered in the vacuum of space. I have changed so severely since I left in August, but nothing here has changed. My home is a beacon of constance that kills me and comforts me all in one breath. 

Things here are familiar. The scent of old books in my childhood bedroom, the jingle of bells on the collars of my cats, my nana singing to herself in the living room. But familiar isn't always good, because I hate that I still haven't grown used to the hate speech playing on the living room TV or my parents screaming at each other until one of them is too tired to keep going. 

When I was at school, I was me. I was so free, so untethered in a way that felt like flying. Here, I am falling forever with no ground in sight. I revert back to the me I was when I had just started middle school. The years of my life when I realized that I needed to hide. I realized that who I was made me dangerous to everyone in my little rural town. And I realized that it made me even more dangerous to her. 

Because what would people say? If they knew what I was? That their colleague's child was a tranny? A confused, brainwashed, mentally ill sob story. It would make her look like a failure of a mother. To know that there's a stain on this beautiful family she's built. That the tough days won't even be worth it because in the end, I will always be there. Waiting. Ready to start something at the drop of a pin. Ready to push back because I spent my entire life doing the opposite and I'm so fucking tired of shutting up and keeping sweet. 

And to think, all of this started over some completely boring protest. That I told her I couldn't support a conflict that killed children and starved innocent people. So of course that makes me stupid, naive. It's just like she said "those people don't care about you." "Those people." Like my uncle's family wasn't from Palestine. Like my father isn't a man that faces the brute of ignorant bastards more often than he'll admit. "Those people" like I don't share more blood with them than anybody in this stupid fucking place. I left the room because I couldn't do it. I've just gotten home and already I am back to being the enemy. The stubborn little girl who doesn't understand how lucky she is to be in such a wonderful place. 

Even now as I move into my bedroom I can hear my mother talking to my nana in hushed tones. I hear my name a few times, I hear her call me a "follower" as if the toxic rot of hatred hasn't already eaten through her brain and gotten rid of any of the kindness I once knew as a child. Even thinking about the mother I had when I was little makes the tears come faster and my throat close up. When she wasn't working 12 hour days everyday, when she hadn't learned how easy it is to blame her problems on some invisible political force. She was so kind. And I want to fall into the feeling of how she once was until there's none of me left, none of her left, just a melted amalgamation of a mother and a child clinging tightly together. 

Right now, I want to scream, I want to I don't fucking know, make a noise so loud that nobody can hear anything else and for a moment everybody will stop and look and they will understand. For once, they will understand. For once, I will be commanding, I will stand up, I will say all of the right things without stuttering or backing down. 

I hear her call me disrespectful as if she has ever for a moment considered wether or not she has respected me or my decisions. I exist only to be an extension of her. She's still complaining in the other room. Walls so thin that I could hear pencil drop in the kitchen. I know that she's frustrated, but maybe I am too? Do I count? Do I get a say? I don't want to be your daughter. I don't even know if I want to be your son. I don't even know if I can go to sleep tonight with the assurance that you will always love me. Because not only is your love conditional, but it comes without respect. And I have known this for all these years, but I never wanted to face it. I am so tired of hating myself. I am so tired of hearing you hate me. I am so tired. 

Did you know that sometimes I got to bed hoping that I won't wake up in the morning? That when I open my eyes, maybe there's a beautiful afterlife waiting for me? Or that I'll become someone new. That I'll be born again with a different family in a different time as a different person. Sometimes I wish I could wake up as you. So that you would love me. Because I really want to be loved. So badly. I want to be loved so badly that it makes my stomach ache and my toes clench and my nose scrunch up. I want to be loved! I could scream it from the rooftops and it still wouldn't be enough. Because for as long as I have been my own autonomous person, I have not felt it. I will have to get it somewhere else from someone else, and that scares me. 

I can't do this anymore. I have to get the fuck out of here. I have to go somewhere that doesn't make me feel like I need to change everything about myself. I need to go somewhere where the love is so palpable that you could reach out and touch it. I want to be loved. Please God, send me somewhere where I will be so loved and where I can love in return.