Fallon
The water scalds my skin. I don’t turn it down.
It pounds over my head like maybe, if it burns enough, it’ll strip off everything I’m feeling. The blood. The dirt. The death. The helplessness. Maybe if I let it scald me long enough, I’ll wash away all the bad memories.
Instead, I’m overflowing with them.
Not with water.
Not even with pain.
With grief so consuming it feels like I’ll never breathe again, like it’s punched a hole straight through my chest and left it there, gaping and raw. A wound that’ll never scab over because it isn’t just grief. It’s shame. It’s guilt. It’s too much all at once, and I don’t know where to put any of it.
I thought I knew what hate was. I thought I knew what she was. For years, I hated my mother for abandoning us. For leaving me behind. For van
