To the brown-eyed boy:
I know you still think about the depths of her eyes, the smell of her hair, and the texture of her old cashmeres. But did you ever pause to catch the way your mother's bones stuck out of her body or how sharply her spine spliced her skin?
You want to forget that she's not a perfect mother, you want to hold on to this figure who held you, who sang 'happy birthday' to you across phone lines and sent you her affections through the mail.
You once told me that you used to pretend she hadn't left you for a chemical-scented man with crooked white lines. But once a year, she slices open your sanity with a phone call, a text: she loves you, she needs you, she's dying without you.
Help.
So you make excuses again. You hold her hand, you tell me lies. But you're better than this; you're better than a mother who was never present enough for you to remember. You're still a boy with stars in his eyes and you deserve more than asbestos-lined promises and inebriated phone calls. So, for all the smoke in your lungs and the ache in my heart, I hope you find what you need.