I got real good grades back then, I was on the honor roll and I played the flute, played basketball, wanted to be the popular girl, curled my bangs like everyone else, wanted the popular boy.

I hated her because she drank, I used to scream at her and cry and turn down her loud music because I had to sleep because I had to get up early because I had to get good grades. One time I kicked her, I mean I really kicked her, and she cried out in pain and I started crying, sitting there in teh living room on the dirty pink carpet, I held my face in my hands and cried, and she cried too.

She would cook food in the wok, anything she had in the kitchen, and it smelled so bad, I remember smelling the greasiness and waking up to the mess in the morning.

I would lay on my bed at night and listen to them fight and each time she would go to the fridge to get another beer I would plug my ears as tight as I could because the popping sound of the can made me want to kill her.

I listened to nine inch nails on my portable cd player, I turned the volume up as high as it would go and lie there with the headphones on. every hour or so I would shut off the music and listen to see if they had finally quit drinking and fighting and finally just passed out.

When I could hear no noise I would finally be able to sleep, I would take off the headphones and set them by the side of my bed, turn over onto my side and sleep.

The next day I still hated her and half the time I wouldn't talk to her, but she usually would do something nice for me like make me breakfast or something silly and I wanted to forgive her, she was trying to make me forgive her.

Sometimes I would and sometimes I wouldn't but it never failed, every other day she would come home with a twelve pack and drink it all.

She could not discipline me because I had no respect for her.

She outwardly says that she messed up my life, that its her fault that I'm fucked up the way that I am, and she wants me to say "oh no mom, you were a good mother" but I can't say it because she wasn't. She was a shitty mother and she was never there for me when I needed her to be.