Dear mom,
I’m glad you died
It’s not your fault
Our society isn’t made to help people like you
Your murder was just one failure among many by a society that determines our hands before the cards are dealt
A society that kills us all before we’re even born
if we happen to be born needing help
You never got that help
that help was never there
The only thing that was there were the cops
who were friends with Ski, Mark’s dad
who was connected to the police in a way that you never really explained to me
so everything conveniently was swept under the rug
Even the time the house was set on fire
less than 6 months from when I moved in with you
four days before Christmas
two days after school had let out
My friends across the lake thought the red and blues were our Christmas decorations
until they remembered
Clear as day on the recording
“My stepdad set the house on fire”
but even that wasn’t enough
a convenient explanation that I “misunderstood”
or “misspoke”
knowing full well I spoke the truth
Three more years of the same
Calling the police and nothing happening
I became an expert at patching walls
and an expert at building them
walls between me, you, mark
walls between me and the friends I had and could have had as one in the same
Eventually it happened
You pushed me
I pushed back
I was bigger by then, bigger than you realized
bigger than I realized
until I did
I remember you yelling for chewy
yelling for the man who eventually killed you to protect you
as I closed myself in my room
and called my dad to pick me up
after he’d dropped me back off the weekend before
and he knew he never should have left
I agreed to go to therapy after that
and still do
We barely talked after that
just an occasional five minute call
where neither of us were sure of what to say
you always asked why I left
and I always avoided the question
because you knew the answer
You never got better
not even after we involuntarily committed you
stripped you of your agency
ripped you from the arms
of the geriatric man
that I’m still not sure how you were conning him
Not even after you supposedly were getting better
Not after cory told me that you were doing better
Not after I wrote you off
as someone who couldn’t be fixed
as someone who wouldn’t be fixed
as someone already on borrowed time
We still don’t know what actually happened that night
why chewy was there
what set off the argument
we only know the outcome
that you’re gone
it wasn’t your fault
you didn’t ask for abusive men or to be assaulted as a child
you didn’t ask for the bipolar disorder
that cruelly made it even harder
for you to overcome itself
to overcome yourself
it wasn’t your fault
that the police valued their own
to protect and serve their own
it wasn’t your fault
that you’d voted time and time again
for those who let you suffer
it wasn’t our fault
there was nothing we could say or do
that’d make you change your mind
that’d make you accept our help
that’d make you get help
that’d make you ‘better’
it wasn’t his fault
he could have been any of the men from before
I can’t imagine what he felt when he realized what happened
what he did
what waited for him as the honduran man
who murdered a white woman
Having known him
through what little we were able to communicate
in his broken english and my non-existent spanish
he hadn’t hit you before then
he hadn’t hit you when I was there
why did he do it then?
Having known
the guilt I felt just from pushing you
I can’t imagine what he felt
what he feels now
just over ten years
after his mistake
and twelve years
after mine
You deserved so much more
We all deserve so much more
Even if it happened again today
as it does happen again every day
the outcome would be the same
nothing has changed
You would still fall through the cracks
Never getting connected to the services you’d need
Never getting anything more than a warning
from the cops I’d call
Never getting help
because there was no help to receive
I’m glad you died
because it’d still be the same if you hadn’t.