Rememberings

by Sinéad O'Connor

I have to pretend I lost my field hockey stick, because I know my mother will hit me with it all summer if I bring it home. But she’ll just use the carpet-sweeper pole instead. She’ll make me take off all my clothes and lie on the floor and open my legs and arms and let her hit me with the sweeping brush in my private parts. She makes me say, “I am nothing,” over and over and if I don’t, she won’t stop stomping on me.

She’s Protestant. They’re way more practical.

They don’t have the guilt. She genuinely doesn’t care.

You wonder how on earth these people ever had sex enough to create four children when they truly hated each other so much.

He makes me feel tall again when I feel small. I love him very much and I regret all the years I didn’t speak with him because I was young and stupid. I would advise any young person not to do what I did. Time passes quickly and you can’t get it back.