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by Rivers Solomon

Maybe my mother is God, and that’s why nothing I do pleases her. Maybe my mother is God, and that’s why even though she’s never once saved me, I keep praying that this time she will.

knowledge has never saved anyone.

Mother is God, I’m her whim made from clay. Mother is God, I’m Earth’s broken rib. Over and over again, she says: Child, this is paradise. I say, Mother, I’ve never heard of a paradise with a talking serpent, nor one where I must daily encounter food I’m forbidden to eat. I may be newly made, but even I know apples are to be consumed. They’re on the list of WeightWatchers foods worth one point.

Every day, everyone is a hundred different people: who they are when they are alone and feeling fuckable, who they are when they are alone and feeling unfuckable, who they are when they are grief wrecked, when they are joy smacked.

He was a sports fan, an occasional card player. Knew games. Knew when to call or fold. With white people, you always fold.

Even when you fight with everything you have to escape the house, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because outside the house is just as bad as inside the house.

Newborns have a way of leaving casualties in their wake,

And what of my father? Where is my ire for him? Okay, but like, what of anyone’s father. Goodness, we can’t be disappointed by men we never once believed in.

grandad

It is true. I’m worthless. I’m nothing. I’m the fucking child in Omelas. I’m bad and not worth saving or caring for. God, I can’t stop sobbing. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Fuck.

And did you? Did I what? Walk away? From Omelas? I mean, I don’t know. I feel like Omelas was my whole childhood. And I’m back there now. Like it’s still happening all around me. But you’re with the child. The child’s not alone. The child’s with you, inside you. I suppose so. And how do you feel about the child, this child that’s with you that’s been the object of so much abuse? Do you hate them? Do you really want to exile them? Back to being alone in Omelas? Back to loneliness?

First of all, I’m going to ask you to stay Ezri. Stay this you who you are right now, the you who seems to hold all these ghosts. And then, I want you to tell me what you’d do next, what would you do next to the poor Omelas child from Le Guin’s short story? I’d wash him, like I said. He’s a little boy. A rough-and-tumble wild boy. Not anymore. He’s atrophied. He has skin infections. Bones that have healed wrong after fractures. He’s in a lot of pain. He’s blank. Blank faced. Turned off. But I pour a pitcher of water over his matted hair. Another. Pour half a bottle of conditioner in it. The same kind I use. Generic fragrance-free, giant bottle. You get your money’s worth, you know? I use my fingers to unpick the giant mats and locs. Occasionally, I have to use scissors, but I avoid it where I can. Because this boy’s strength is in his hair. It’s a testament to all he’s been through. It’s been with him since he was born. It takes hours and hours to detangle. A clump of hair—casualties to the combs and brushes I’ve used—big as a small critter—sits next to us. The boy— Does he have a name? No. They never named him in Omelas. Would you like to? Maybe, yes. After he’s clean, I put him in one of my old T-shirts. He takes the ball of hair and pets it. I’ve rinsed it out and dried it, tied it into a little ball. He’s still not talking. Or reacting. It’s okay if he never does. I tell him that, even though I’m not sure he hears me, or understands. I carry him to his bed, which is my...

History repeats and repeats because history is people, and we can reproduce only what we know, and we get what we know from our elders. The same mechanisms that facilitate language facilitate the passing on of pain.

Emotions are little curses, spells. They come over us and take us away, outside ourselves. There is no predictability. At times, one spell trumps another, or multiple spells war at once, and the body becomes a shell in those moments, a shell that does not belong to you.

We have a tendency at times to exonerate fathers, seemingly blameless because of their absence or their ambivalence.

I am left with a man who was pleasant, but who I cannot say that I know, and a man who I remember fondly, but also remember not at all.

Le Guin’s work is an allegory about the way grand riches depend on the exploitation of the downtrodden. There are no mansions without a torn-down forest.

Mother is God, I’m her baby Job. She has let a devil ruin me—and for no reason but to remind me, nothing in this world is ours.

Laurie is Nightmare Mother and Nightmare Mother is God. Nightmare Mother is Creator. For years, we have been drugged, my sisters and I, my parents. Our bodies were the playthings of Laurie—and how many other neighbors?

a shift; a realization; a sorrow; so many sorrows