Don't be Selfish

At 5, I asked my mother,

“Mommy, where is daddy?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she handed me one hundred dollars.

What good is money

to a five year old?

I would rather have had a father than a million dollars.

I was being selfish.

At 10, I asked my grandmother,

“Grandmother, where is mommy?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she handed me a brochure for an American College.

I am not even in high school yet,

but she is gone.

Do I want a smarter mother, or just a mother?

I was being selfish.

At 12, I asked my mother,

“Why are you and daddy not together anymore?”

She said, “Because I don’t love him anymore.”

Love is a trivial word.

Tell me mother, do you still love me?

If you ran out of love for the man you married, what about the child you had together?

I was being selfish.

At 15, I asked my mother,

“What happened to the last guy?”

She showed me the diamond necklace hanging around her neck and said, “We’ll be better off with Jerry.”

I still want a father,

but you wanted diamonds.

I lost me. Now I am a stranger.

I was being selfish.

At 16, I asked my mother for some bread,

“Your don’t own anything here!”

she yelled at me. “This is for Jerry’s children.”

Jerry’s children,

what am I, but your child?

I knew you would “run out” of love for me too. Heartless black widow.

I was being selfish.

At 18, I told my father,

“I want to see you!”

But he didn’t answer me. Instead he showed me his new wedding ring and another bill.

You’ll die before I ever see you again.

Don’t you at least want to apologize

for all the years you left me behind? Oh, but that was my fault, right?

I was being selfish.

At 21, I graduated and told my parents,

“You lied. You said it was all for me.

But really, I was in the way.” Then I turned around and walked away.

They should not share in my success

because they didn’t add to it.

I don’t hate them. They did “love” me, for a little while.

Why does English only have one word for “love”?

This inadequate phrase lost its meaning

for me. My family loved me, but now, I don’t know if love is anything

other than my broken viscera,

spilled out before them,

begging them to explain to me, “Why, why, why?”

From the tiny little girl to the graduate

who waited on the stairs to say goodbye,

I want to know if love exists like the love between a mother bear and her cub,

Between an eagle and it’s chicks,

Was I simply the egg that fell out of the nest?

Or was I a different color?

they loved me, you see,

but if that was love,

then I think it the cruelest and most ruthless thing in the world.

But maybe, in the end, it all boils down to the fact that,

I was being selfish.