Writing Without Limits: October 2013

While completing my sophomore year of college, I had to complete a 20-page portfolio for my Advanced Creative Writing class. Below is my complete collaboration. It is a series of poems and spoken monologues over a course of about 30 years with a mother and her son. Enjoy.

Smoking Kills.

Love Doesn’t Exist.

Sex

She’s fifteen. In love.

Heart on fire, burning at the sight of him.

They are together, like every other day.

Bodies entwined.

Sharing souls.

He’s eighteen. In like.

He wants fun, good times.

No strings attached.

He wants what he can get.

He can get her.

She wants more than S-E-X.

She wants Love.

Seeing past his eyes,

and into his empty heart

is nothing but darkness.

Her desire to change him

only makes her love grow fonder.

It’s over.

He drapes on his shirt.

He slips into his jeans.

He leaves.

Her eyes begin to swell.

They feel as full as the ocean; salty and rough.

She loves him.

He likes her.

War

Boy likes girl,

girl loves boy.

Girl gets pregnant,

All hell breaks loose.

The screaming won’t stop.

Dishes are thrown

as the meal she made him escapes out the window.

Broken glass surrounds her bare feet

as his face turns hotter with each vein

making an appearance on his now red face.

“Get rid of it!”

Chairs are thrown.

“I can’t.”

She cowers behind the loveseat couch,

where they once spent the weekend on.

The fighting won’t stop.

He screams out Abortion!

She cries out I Can’t.

He walks out the door.

Salty tears trickle down her tired face.

The war is over.

He walked out.

She is Alone.

The Cigarette

The woman flicks her bud out her third story window.

It tumbles down the fire escape

creating small sparks that quickly turn to ash

as it collides with the ground.

She turns to her daughter

with a smug look on her face,

Sixteen and pregnant.

Like mother like daughter.

Whore.

The girls eyes are puffy and red

from gaining the courage to tell her mom

that she has a bun in the oven

and the thing’s father is gone.

There is five minutes of silence

where the girl stares up at her mother,

waiting for her

to decide what to do next.

The mother lights another cigarette

and takes a swig from her flask.

Keep it. Don’t keep. I don’t care.

But when you turn eighteen,

you’re out.

The mother takes another puff

and hands the cigarette to her daughter.

As she leaves the room,

the girl looks longingly at the smoking stick,

and takes a puff.

Birth

She’s sixteen. Alone.

She has been crying since he left.

She thought he was The One.

Could she have been that naive?

She’s scared. Anxious.

She recalls when he left her.

Where is he now?

The contractions grow closer as the clock ticks on by.

Six centimeters. Seven. Eight. Nine.

It’s time to push.

The girl lets out an exhausted whimper;

Just let it be over already.

She’s crying. Pain.

Her eyes drift open and closed.

The screaming she hears is new.

It’s not angry the way He screamed at her.

No. It isn’t even a scream. It’s a cry.

It’s crying.

It’s a boy.

What now?

Give it a name? Jack.

Ten fingers, ten toes.

It’s hers.

He is hers.

She’s sixteen. No longer alone.

The Interview

Reporter:
Good morning Jack. Thanks again for agreeing to do this interview. I can only imagine how hard the situation you are in must be. For starters, why don’t you tell me about the relationship you have with your mother.
Jack:
I don’t have a relationship with my mom. I hate my mom. Sometimes I wish I were never born. Let’s not even get me started on who my father is, because according to my mom, she “can’t remember.” I call bullshit.
My mom was sixteen when she had me. When she was eighteen, my Nana, her mom, kicked us out. I remember moving around a lot. Half of the places we stayed the night in were probably homeless shelters, but almost everything before seven is blurry. Days finally started to become clear the night my Nana died. I was seven years old and my mom was out “making money” on the streets. It was a little while after when we moved into our first and last apartment- the same apartment my mom burned down. The phone rang and all I could think of was “Wow. Who paid our bills this month? Does that mean the TV will work too?” The person on the other line was the hospital telling me that my Nana had just died. I knew she was sick, but mom never took me to see her. They hated each other. My mom hates everybody. She hates my dad, whoever he is, and I’m no exception.
If I’m being honest, she only kept me for the food stamps, welfare checks, and because I remind her of my dad. She claims she can’t remember him, but we all know she’s lying. I can see it in her eyes whenever I get a year older. She gets this pained expression on her face, as if she got a glimpse of heaven, wanted to stay, but was told no.
Love doesn’t exist, but heartbreak definitely does. It’s one of those things that the media puts out there to make money. That’s why I think there are so many match making businesses. They say things like “The love of your life might be right in front of your eyes, you simply need the guidance to get to him or her. That’s why we are here. We are here to guide you to your lover.”
In reality, not enough people are reading between the lines. What the media is really saying is “Love is unattainable, but if you want to pretend it exists, join our program! You can meet someone online, marry them six weeks after your first date, get divorced the very next week, and feel the heartbreak everyone else is experiencing. Let’s get miserable together!” Seriously, people need to start reading the way I do. Imagine how much money people would save if they just listened to me. There would be no paying for memberships on eHarmony or Match.com, no spending thousands of dollars on a wedding, and no paying lawyers for the divorce that would soon follow.
Sorry, I’m getting off track. We aren’t even talking about that kind of love. We are talking about mother-son love. That doesn’t exist either. If it has to do with love, it isn’t real. I mean, come on! She’s in jail because she couldn’t get her shit together. She was so full of hate for everyone around her that she drowned out reality in her drinking and smoking.
What’s my biggest fear? Turning out like her. They do say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Maybe it’s destiny or God or some other higher power that controls my outcome, but I just hope they know what they are doing.
What happened the night I realized I hated my mom as much as she hated me? I came home to my mom burning down our apartment and killing two people. Every night went the exact same way. She would come back from working the streets or the diner, wreaking of whatever booze she could get her hands on, and smoke herself to sleep. I only stayed there to make sure she came home in one piece, then I would go to my buddy Roy’s house and crash there.
On the night of the fire, I was at Roy’s but something didn’t feel right. I went home to check on my mom. When I walked through the door there was smoke everywhere. I swear it was like I walked into a Vegas smokers convention or something. I found her passed out on the couch. Her cigarette had fallen in a pool of her booze induced vomit. According to investigators, it caused an immediate spark and set the apartment on fire. I didn’t even know puke could catch fire like that, but considering that all my mom does is drink and smoke, I’m not too surprised.
The couple next door had drank their fair share of alcohol too. That apartment complex is full of people like my mom. Anyways, they slept through the whole thing and died that night. It was all my moms fault. She’s so selfish. I almost wish I didn’t come home. If I stayed at Roy’s, I can’t say I would shed a tear at the thought of her body, lifeless in a field of ashen couch. I’m fifteen! I shouldn’t have to deal with this. Now I get to spend my days talking to lawyers and reporters like you because of her. She’s in jail and she is still finding ways to screw me over. One thing for sure is that I won’t be visiting her. I’m done. I am beyond over cleaning her up after she vomits all over herself. I’m done taking her to the hospital when she gets withdrawals because she has gone two days without drinking. We all know that only happens when she spends all of her paycheck on cigarettes and junk food without thinking. Then again, does she even have brain to think with? And could it kill her to buy me an apple every now and then? What’s an apple even taste like? This is ridiculous. I’m fifteen and the closest thing I have come to fruit are the apple-flavored eCigarettes that Roy gave me for my birthday. What did my mom get me? She got me a black eye because she caught me smoking them out on the fire escape again. Whatever.
Do you have an apple? Can you buy me one? It’s the least you can do for letting you interview me. It’s been three hours and I’m hungry. I don’t want anymore vending machine food. I want an apple and I want to go home or wherever the government wants to send me. Maybe Roy’s parents will adopt me. They would get more food stamps and welfare checks for three more years. I would get play house with my best friend and pretend that I have a family.
Earlier I said I wished I had never been born. I take that back. I wish I had a different mother. And I wish I had a father. My mom doesn’t love me. If she just gave me up for adoption, maybe I would reconsider my beliefs about love. Maybe I would be part of that 99% of Americans who think love is real. I wouldn’t mind that. In fact, I’d like that a lot. You could almost say I’d love it.

My Son Jack

Annie:
I’m better at hiding my emotions than I thought. When my heart is heavy and I feel the tear drops accumulate in the sockets of my eyes, my brain tells me to stop.
It says things like, “Enough. We don’t have time for this. Get your life together.”
I used to watch a television series about four women in an upperclass neighborhood who loved drama and emotion about as much as I hated to show mine. There was one character in particular who I always felt I could connect with. She explained that she liked to take unfortunate life experiences and put them in an imaginary box, shove them into an empty closet, and close the door and never look back. She was me, or rather, I was her. To me, emotions scream weakness. People don’t need to see how I feel. They don’t need to see the shattered glass that once held the place of my heart. No, a man did not break my heart. A man or two may have put a dent in it, but my past is more like a grenade. Someone pulled the trigger and launched it directly my way. Even if I could assemble the pieces back together, the duct tape I use would only be a temporary fix to the insanity that pulsates throughout my soul.
I hate myself. I always have. I think I always will. My mom used to tell me she hated me whenever she saw me feeling weak. It was like her sixth sense, or maybe just a mom thing, but she knew when I was hurting particularly more than usual.
She would say something along the lines of, “Annie, don’t worry. I hate you too. Now have a smoke and get over. The world is a cold place. The only way to live in it is to be cold with it.”
If you ever knew her, you would know that she realizes that she was the one who pulled the plug on that grenade. She might not have thrown it, but she pulled that plug and she knew what she was doing the entire time. I’m glad she is dead. She deserved it. I’m glad her death was slow and painful. Her slow escape out of this world by the buds of the hundreds of cigarettes she smoked throughout her life brings me joy. Emphysema is a bitch and I love it. She deserved to suffer. She deserved a long, slow, and exhausting exit out of Earth and into hell. She may have been my mother, but I had to raise myself. She is the reason why I am here. She is the reason I’m in prison. She passed the smokers torch right onto me and I accepted it in attempt to see her eye to eye. A few years after she died, I smoked myself to sleep in my own apartment.
We know who dented my heart. The man who I loved then left me when I got pregnant and the men who used me for years after that. We know my mom started the fire and pulled the plug on the grenade. Who shattered my heart into oblivion? It was my son, Jack. My little boy.
Six years I have been in this hell hole. Not once have I ever seen him walk through the visitors door and into this room. I’ve seen lawyers, old flames, and new flames who are now on the outside world, but never my son. My Jack. My boy. He hates me, and for that I hate myself. He is the only one who can get me to show emotion without asking for me to. It wasn’t sucked out of me the way my mother sucked it out of me. My brain never stopped me when I was around my little Jack. I could be myself. That will never happen again.
He blames me for falling asleep with that cigarette in my hand. He blames me for killing the couple next door. Jack carried me out of the apartment, but those people were trapped. I blamed my mother, and my son blamed me. All I can remember is waking up outside our complex in an ambulance and Jack was talking to some cops. He had a shiner on his face that I can only assume I gave him. He must’ve been smoking out on the balcony again. I kept telling him that smoking killed his Nana and that it will probably kill me too. He doesn’t need that same fate.
I remember the next few months after that clearly. The investigations, the interrogating, and the court appearances. The next thing I know, I am being sentenced to fifteen years. Fifteen years without my baby boy. He’s 21 and grew up without his mother. I still have nine more years here. He threw that grenade into my heart and let it burst. He pushed me into the fire my mother started the day I was born. Then he walked away. He shook his head, put his hands in his pockets, and walked away.
Do you think I should tell him about his father? I’ve never told anyone. Maybe Jack won’t hate me if he finds out about Chris. I would even settle for Jack pitying me. At least he would come see me. Have you seen him? He must look so much like Chris. They have the same eyes: big, round, and that dark blue that looks like the deepest parts of the ocean. You know, almost black, but still light enough to differentiate between that and pupils. I’d never seen eyes like that until I saw Chris’ eyes. I knew I loved him from that moment. I wish I knew he didn’t feel the same way.
He used me. When I was making love, he was fucking. I hate that word. Whenever I hear it I think of the day he left and hate myself even more. I wasn’t on birth control and we almost never used protection. He said condoms made him uncomfortable and if I really loved him, it would be ok. He knew I was head over heels for him, but when I got pregnant, I saw Chris for who he really was. He was a monster. He threw dishes at me, screamed and threatened to leave. I couldn’t kill something we created. It was our own fault, but I saw it as a beautiful disaster. It could be a way of him finally loving me and having a cute and quaint family with him. I was so stupid. He left me that day and I never saw him again.
I never loved another man until I had Jack. This was a different kind of love. It wasn’t just his eyes. It was his heart, his soul, and the mere fact that I had created such a beautiful creature. I shouldn’t have taken him for granted. After my mom kicked me out, we moved from various homeless shelters to sleeping on the couches of random men. I would exchange sexual favors for somewhere to sleep. I am disgusted with myself. I whored myself out to give my son a roof over his head, but I ruined myself in the process. I doubled my smoking and tripled my drinking. My mind floated off into oblivion as my son drifted farther and farther away from me. I let it happen. I turned into someone he hated. I was his Chris.
Never mind. Jack doesn’t need to know who his father was. I would rather have my son hate me than pity me because I was with a man like Chris. And I certainly don’t want Jack to hate himself for sharing a bloodline with that man. It’s bad enough he has to share one with me.
I think I’ll write Jack a letter. Would you give it to him? I need him to know that although I hate myself, I never stopped loving him. He showed me a glimpse of real love and I took advantage of that. Now I am back to where it all started, with everyone hating me and the feeling being mutual. I need him to know that even though I hide my emotions, I quietly pray to God, or whatever higher power there is out there, that my boy come back and bring some duct tape with him.

Finding Peace

Jack is sitting on the front steps to the entrance of his rundown apartment complex at around 5 in the evening. After her first year out of prison, she died of lung cancer. A teenager, Allen, who sees Jack smoking every day asks him if he ever thought about quitting.

(Jack lights the last cigarette from his pack and takes a drag)

Jack:
Smoking should kill me, but I love it so much, I think I would die without it. My Nana died of Emphysema when I was seven. She was barely forty. My mom died of lung cancer last year. She found out she was sick during her last physical with the prison doctors. I plan on following the family tradition. After all, I did have a head start. I used to sneak a cigarette out on the fire escape while my mom was working her double shift at Bob’s Burgers or earning extra cash on the street. I was only eleven at the time. I thought I was so cool too. All the other kids at school were jealous that I was able to get away with smoking at such a young age.
Look at me now! I’m thirty-one, I have no family, I don’t know who my dad is, I have asthma, and I smoke a pack a day! Did I mention how much I love it? It’s probably the only thing that’s never let me down. Cigarettes have been with me since day one. I wouldn’t put it past my mom to smoke while pregnant either, so I’m sure there’s proof that is genuinely is in the blood of my family. I like to call it the Smokers Gene. You gotta die of something, so why not die while doing something you love?

(puffs)

I don’t think you should smoke though. Don’t ever fall in love with smoking. It’s too risky. You’re young. You have potential. Go to school, find a nice hobby, go to college. Get laid, get married, have kids. Don’t smoke.
I know what you’re thinking. ‘You smoke and look at how great you turned out.’ I know, I know, I know. I look fantastic, don’t I? My teeth are yellowing, my eyes are puffed out, and I smell like I just walked out of a fire. I tried all the different laundry soaps, but nothing seems to take the stench completely away. I don’t smell it anymore, but my neighbors do, and they complain every time I walk in and out of my door.

(puffs; coughs; puffs)

I always thought about quitting, but I’m no quitter. If I’m going down, I’m going down swinging. Quitting is for weak people. Mom always said not to start anything you couldn’t finish. So here I am, finishing off my first pack of cigarettes, then it is off to buy more. I wonder if Costco sells them in bulk? Ha! Like I have time or money for that bullshit. They want me to pay them to walk around! And that’s before I’ve even decided if I want to buy anything! Well, fuck that. Besides, Ted at the corner market knows me. He knows what I like. Every day at the same time I walk in and there they are, my Winstons sitting on the counter. I got the money and he’s got the goods.

(puffs)

What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. Quitting. Nope. I never could. I guess it’s that nicotine shit they put in them. I knew I was trapped from the first puff I ever took on that fire escape while mom was sleeping. She did catch me a few times after that. She would take it away, beat the shit out of me, then walk back outside and finished good ole Winston. I once saw on a commercial that a single cigarette is ten minutes off of your life. If that’s really the case, then I’m right on track for following tradition.

(puffs)

Jack:
Boy did my mom do a number on me growing up. Did you know she killed two people? Yup. She fell asleep with a cigarette in her hand after a long night of drinking. She caught the entire apartment on fire and our neighbors got trapped inside. Crazy, I know. I hated her for a long time after that. I was your age when that happened. You’re fifteen, right?
I went into foster care until I turned eighteen, then slept on my buddy Roy’s couch while I looked for a job and tried to find a place of my own. I never drank-and I still don’t because I don’t want to be a killer like my mom. After that night, I didn’t talk to her for a long time. Actually, it wasn’t until the year before she got out of jail that I even heard from her. All that time, I figured she had forgotten about me. Instead, she was writing me a letter. I carry it with me everywhere now. You wanna hear it? I guarantee you will need tissues after I read it. Before I first read it, I thought it was going to be more along the lines of hate-mail and my mom reminding me how much she didn’t love me. Instead, I found myself crying for the first time since she was put away. I didn’t know I had tear ducts. I assumed they shriveled up and turned to dust or something due to being rejected for over ten years. Nope. They were there and they released a monsoon of tears. I know, dude. Big guys don’t cry, but I’m not ashamed of this one. I’m proud of it.

For Jack

I remember when you were first born. I was only sixteen. Your Nana was on her third double shift at the diner that week. My water broke in P.E. and all the girls screamed, then laughed at me. They called me names like “slut” and “whore.” Those were the nice names too. They would also call me a reject and tell me that your dad never really wanted me. They said that once you were born, you wouldn’t want me either. I hoped and I prayed that this would not happen. I know I never show emotion around others and that I have a barricade with barbed wire surrounding my heart. Truth be told, you were the only one who I didn’t have to protect myself from. I took advantage of that thinking you would always be here with me, but those girls were right and now I have nothing.
The day my water broke was my last day of school. Miss Luxman, the P.E. coach, drove me to the emergency room and told me to get out. She then muttered a short, “Good Luck” and proceeded to burn rubber, letting her tires screech as she peeled out of the parking lot and back to school. It was as if she knew my life would be over- and for a while, I thought it was. I was alone. All by myself in that cold room. But you made it so warm. Your cries for me made me feel wanted. No one wanted me before I had you. Did you know I was in labor for only five hours? The doctors told me that the younger you are, the quicker the birth tends to be. They weren’t kidding either, but at the time it felt more like fifty hours. At one point, I thought you broke me. I was in so much pain I think I went into shock, because the next thing I knew, you were wrapped in a blue blanket and crying for your mother. You were crying for me.
Nana picked us up the next day, cigarette in one hand and Jack Daniels in the other. When she found out I was pregnant, she said we could stay with her until I turned eighteen. Her mom did the same thing to her when she had me. I guess it was some sort of passage for being a teen mom. Anyways, I didn’t think she would actually kick us out. I thought she was trying to scare me into having an abortion or giving you up for adoption.
I thought about it for a while- the adoption thing, not the abortion. I would never end your life because I failed to be responsible. I did think about adoption though. I didn’t want you to hate me the way I hate Nana, but I wanted to prove to those mean girls at school that I could raise you on my own and that everything would be ok. I loved you. I always did. But after Nana kicked us out, I was so consumed with hatred for myself and for her that I failed to love you the way a mother should.
I’m a selfish person. I know you are wishing that you had a different mother or were adopted, but I don’t regret keeping you. Like I said, I’m selfish. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t give you up and I definitely wouldn’t abort you. Instead, I would change myself. I wouldn’t have accepted the cigarette that Nana handed me the day I told her I was pregnant with you. I wouldn’t have let those god-awful girls put me down just because my boyfriend left me standing alone. I wouldn’t choose to drink and smoke myself to sleep every night to fill the void in my heart, because I wouldn’t have let it break in the first place.
If I could do it all over again, I would kiss you every night before you went to sleep instead of working the streets for cheap labor. I would get two, even three jobs at different diners and still be home to tuck you in at night. I know I am a horrible person. I know you blame me for killing that couple. I blame my mom for a lot of things too.
I’m sorry. I am so sorry and if there was a way I could turn back time, trust me-I would do it. I would use the money I make to pay the bills on time and buy healthier food, like fruits and veggies instead of the chips and ding-dongs I bought for you.
I get out next month, and I hope after you read this, you will consider seeing me. I miss you so much, and every day I feel my heart dying a little more because I know how you feel about me.
My lawyer showed me a picture of you. You are so handsome. I hope that my selfishness didn’t rub off on you. Instead I hope you find your own courage to stand up to the people who hurt you, like me, but I also hope you find peace and forgive me for everything I have done to you.
I am so blessed to have you in my life. I never told you I loved you, but I did. I still do. Not a day goes by that I’m thinking about you and sending love your way. Please find it in your heart to forgive me for the wrongs I have done to you. I know I can be a better mom. I can change. I know it may not feel that way, but it’s true. Just give me chance.
Love Always,
Mom

Jack:
I was a shit head when I was your age. My mom made a lot of mistakes, but I like to think that raising me was not one of them. Sure, an adoption may have given me a better life, but who’s to say I don’t love the life I have?
Before my mom wrote me that letter, I didn’t think love was real. Nowadays, terms are a little different. I’ve come to an understanding with myself that the only real love is the love between a parent and their kid. Everything else is all fake. Those people who are getting married are only doing it for the binding contract that comes with a child. Do you know what I’m talking about? Child support. Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if my mom and dad were married when they had me. Sure, my mom still could have taken him to court for the money, but that would mean she had to track him down and find him first. I doubt she ever wanted to see him again after the way things ended between them two.
If you’re wondering who my dad is, I don’t know. My mom took it to the grave. All I know is that his name is Chris and we have the same eyes. I remember hearing it an interview- or was it from her lawyer- when she was still behind bars. Oh well, screw him. I stopped caring the day my mom went to jail-when I thought all hope was lost.
It took me almost thirty years to figure out how I feel about love. Why am I telling you this? So you can get a head start. You now know that this is the only kind of love out there, so if you do get married, I’m assuming it’s only because you want kids.

(final puff)
Well, there goes the last one. Time to see Ted. And kid, don’t ever smoke. It will ruin you. It ruined my granny. It ruined my mom. And it is ruining me. Don’t die the way I will.
Die skydiving or bungee jumping or in the arms of you wife or husband or the children you will grow to love.
Just don’t die alone. Smoking will do that to you.