How is she?
They ask.
I don't know what to tell them. I don't know how to say that I see her maybe twice a month. I don't know how to say that thinking about her makes my gut twist, the corners of my lips turn down.

When I was sixteen she was bad. I barely knew myself because all I thought about was her. I tried to be a different person when other people saw me, but my eyes betray me and acting is a tiresome opportunity.

When I was sixteen, I became afraid of the color blue. Because lips turn blue when someone stops breathing, and I always had this comical picture of what it looked like, but now I know for sure and the thought does not bring humor.

When I was eleven she was bad, but I was blind. She slept in every day, she left cans strewn about and she fell asleep with cigarettes in her hand. Everything we owned had been pawned at least twice, and I was so stupid because I thought that all families were like that.

When I was three, my dad drove racecars and I had an infatuation with a blanket my grandmother owned and I barely remember anything but I remember her even less.

My first memory is of being clean. I had just gotten a bath in the kitchen sink and I was wrapped up in a soft towel that smelled like downy. I wish she had been clean then too.

When I was in her belly, she was bad. She smoked and she thought she was capable of raising a child but she was wrong. It would take another 19 years for me to figure her out, and by then I would feel like I was nothing without her.