Hunger Pains

Hospital Food

   I sat quietly in the only tan-colored chair that occupied the large hospital room. It was strange being in the same room as her after not seeing her a year. The last time I had seen my mom was a year ago and she was struggling to find a place to live after her boyfriend had snuck her into his mom's house and threatened to send her to jail on more than one occasion. I remember spending an entire week of my Christmas break with her, telling my dad that I was spending time with a friend from high school, helping her find a better place to stay, but she just kept going back to the piece of shit. It annoyed me how when it came to shitty people, she would give them a billion chances, but when it came towards people who were healthy and better for her, one fuck up would make her run for the hills. Maybe she was used to being treated like shit. Maybe she didn't know what it was like to be loved by someone who loved her back. Whatever the reason, it made no sense.

The chair kept a good distance away from the hospital bed my mom was lying in, but the chair had the ability to move closer or further away if necessary. In the corner of the room mounted a small T.V. that was screaming dialogue from this afternoon's movie that was playing on T&T. Whatever it was that my mom was watching, the station must have thought that it was a good idea to put a movie on repeat for an entire day. Even with the T.V. blaring, I was still able to hear my mom's voice sneak its way from the background.

"Ugh. Again. I've already seen this movie four times already. You get so sick and tired of watching the same shit all damn day, but there is nothing else good to watch."

I shook my head—forgetting how ungrateful she was at times for the good things that she had—and allowed my attention to be stolen by the colorful screen. The woman that was lying in the hospital bed wasn't the same woman I saw a year ago, and she definitely wasn't the same woman from when I was sixteen years old. Last December, she had lost so much weight, I couldn't recognize her. Her stomach had flattened, her hair was cut shorter than before, on her face sat glasses that had an old prescription, and she had a few scars on her face. This wasn't the same woman I had grown up knowing. I knew she was trying to lose weight; she had been trying to for years, but drugs had really fucked her up.

Not seeing her for the entire year wasn't entirely intentional. For years, she had treated me like I was inferior, like I was the mold she couldn't get rid of, and that I was the daughter that she didn't want. In all reality, I was the daughter that preferred to focus on school, get good grades, participate in sports, and stay out of trouble. Unlike my sister, Ariana who got expelled from our school district, started doing drugs, and was constantly in trouble with the law. Yet I was the one who was ignored, received weekly guilt-trips, texts reminding me that I treated my mom "so horrible" compared to my dad, continuous lies, broken promises, and a constant reminder that I was a selfish daughter. When I turned sixteen, I grew tired of her bullshit and moved in with my dad. The moment I made a decision that would benefit me, our conversations grew shorter and shorter each time we talked. Soon, our conversations halted all together. It was hard to listen to her lame ass excuses and reasons as to why she was absent for three whole years of my life. If it wasn't placing the blame on work as to why she couldn't make it to my 7:00 p.m. basketball game, it was my sister who had a concert that she just "had to be there for". It was heart wrenching and frustrating to have a mother who only showed up for three total events out of four years, yet she was always there for whatever my sisters had done.

For fifteen years of my life, I desperately tried to get her attention, to receive any form of love from her, to gain any form of affection, and to receive some form of approval. But after years and years of failure and being treated like garbage, I gave up. I never asked her for dating advice, I never asked her how I should style my dark, curly black hair, and I never asked her how to apply any form of makeup on my face. I was excluded from the equation of being a daughter to her. And no matter how hard I tried, I was never able to add myself to her selfish equations.