Hunger

I used to not have enough food

So I stole food

Foraging through the trash for stale, cold food

I pushed through

Now I shop at Whole Foods

Actually I pay someone else to do it for me, because my time is worth more than when I worked as a whore

I dredged myself up from the bottom, headed to the top even when I didn’t know it

Sometimes it seemed I was going backwards, yet I kept moving forward

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

Please don’t judge me for being a sex worker in order to make ends meet

You taught me how to dissociate from my body, how to put other’s wants ahead of my needs

You were my first violator and my first pimp

Remember molesting me at night throughout my childhood and adolescence?

You opened the floodgates for countless rapes

Remember forcing me to do things I didn’t want to do my whole life?

Pimping me out to abusive children who you ‘felt sorry for’ because they did’t have any friends

The reason why they didn’t have any friends is because they weren’t good friends. Like you, they were trapped in abuse

Oscillating between abuser and abused

Remember commanding me yet never asking or listening?

I told you I was depressed, you told me I was not

The middle school guidance counselor called you to pick me up from school because I was suicidal-

All you did was yell at me

You found out I was a sex worker by violating my privacy

You yelled at me to respect myself

Yet you never respected me and actively taught me to disrespect myself

How can you expect me to fly when all you ever did was drag me down and break my wings

You raised me in poverty

Gave me no financial resources, no guidance

I was hungry, I had textbooks to buy and rent to pay

You want to take credit for my success

I became who I am in spite of you, not because of you

Though I see the crucial role you played

At the end of the day all I can say is namaste