STEP ONE: have a tenacious relationship with your mother. if you can remember a single childhood memory not tinted bittersweet, you’re doing it wrong. my mother loved to say she had to teach me how to feel pain, because I wouldn’t fuss when I was hurt. what she didn’t know? it’s not that I didn’t feel it; it’s that I knew she wouldn’t care. 

STEP TWO: watch as your brother is kicked out first. he’s older, so it’s only fair. but it did mean that i knew my turn was coming. even if his wrecked me enough. I would pace down the hallway, expecting to see his face at the end of it. I would make dinner for two, put leftovers in the fridge that I’d never eat. if it wasn’t eaten with him, it wasn’t worth it. his wrecked me more than my own did. painted in my mind is my back against his door, keeping her out, buying him time. imprinted in the very fiber of my being is the look on his face when i stuffed all of the cash i had in his hand and told him i wouldn’t accept his refusal. tattooed into my flesh are the foggy cornfields as i sat in the driveway sobbing after he left. 

STEP THREE: ignore the writing on the wall until you have no choice. and then blame yourself for what happens because you knew it was coming. i stood too long, paralyzed in fear. and then i listened as a police officer, a counselor, and an advisor told me that there was nothing they could do for me. 

STEP FOUR: accept that there’s nothing that you can do. that there is no hope for you. this step is the hardest, but also the quickest. after three people had told me that this is it, this is my hand of cards I was dealt — that she dealt to me — it’s impossible to ignore. I lost my mind a thousand times and died a thousand deaths in the span of two days. I believed in her like a God; I was on my knees begging for forgiveness, for understanding. if I had gotten it, this would be a different story. 

STEP FIVE: get kicked out. stand under a yield sign on the corner of the street in the cold and rain. ripped jeans and a coat, nothing but my phone and a charger in my pockets. I didn’t know the next time I’d go to school or where I’d sleep that night. when the police officer comes, one has to wonder what she was told when she says the words can i pat you down? I’m not trying to get stabbed. as if there was anything else to do, I let her. 

STEP SIX: come to terms with it. step four was the hardest because this one is impossible. if I am not my own mother’s first choice, how could I be anyone’s? if nothing I ever did was enough for her, how could it be for anyone? when someone talks about their mom, not their mother, I have to try to not let the jealousy eat me alive. if everyone else could have a good childhood and a good mom, why was I not enough for mine to be?