Motherthing

by Ainslie Hogarth

Grown men with no way to communicate anger but screaming and punching walls and capsizing chairs and it would have made you feel the slightest bit bad for them if you didn’t also hate their guts.

Lamb, Laura. Survived by son Ralph Lamb (Abigail) and no one else. No other soul in the world had tethered itself to hers by choice, and that should tell you something. She won’t really be missed by her strange, scabby neighbor, or the inanimate objects she carted to the casino and worshipped like little gods. She might have been missed by her daughter-in-law, who was ready to love her like a mother, who could have loved a rolled-up pair of socks if she had to, who did love a fucking couch, for Christ sake. But Laura didn’t want that. Despite her faults, Laura Lamb managed to raise the most genuinely good person in the entire world, and for that Abby will always love her, even though the woman was honestly a horrible fucking bitch.

Lamb, Laura June 1, 1964—January 23, 2019 Beloved mother of Ralph Lamb (Abigail). The family would like to sincerely thank the nurses and staff at St. Joseph’s Hospital who worked very hard to save her life. Arrangements will be handled by Families First Funeral Home.

Depression becomes this house, where it’s thrived in one form or another for at least thirty years: dark, claustrophobic rooms where bad thoughts collect like tide pools, slimy, brackish hazards, impossible to avoid.

Fuck. Fucking fuck.

Maybe touching someone is the kindest thing you can do; making a person feel like it’s okay to touch them, that they’re touchable and not disgusting, is the easiest and best way to make a person feel good in the world.

I wanted to die but nothing happened. I wanted to not be alive anymore but I had to be. Alive still, in this terrible moment too, even though frankly I have that feeling again where I wouldn’t mind not being alive.

Boys are boys and they do what they want. Women want things too sometimes, but mostly they’re just warm sensory boards for men to tweak and rub and learn about themselves and the world through.

I can’t give you what you want.

Safer to drift into oblivion with Ralph.

I have nowhere to go. No friends. No mother. I’m nothing. I’m nothing.

cumshitkill.

On the typewriter, my fingers marching: fuck, bitch, cum, whore, piss, ass, asshole, anal anal anal cock, fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking, fucker, shit, shit, shithead, shitbag, shitface, shitter, cunt, whore, she’s a whore, a whore a whore a whore a whore’s daughter, sad whore’s daughter, daddy, who cares, daddy, who cares, someone who hurt her, hurt HER so badly. Hurt HER so BADLY. We’re never allowed to talk about him. Hurt her so badly, so badly, so badly, please. Please stay. What do you want? What can I do? I’ll give you anything, anything, anything you want, you want her too? You can have her. You can have us both. You can have us both. You can have us both. You can have us both. You can have us both. You can have us both. You can have us both.

UGHHH so so real

Smarter, younger, prettier, superior to this genetic practice run who came before her.

GENETIC PRACTICE RUN IS ABSOLUTELY CRAZY LMFAOOO

Why do you get to punish a perfectly good mother, when there are lots of mothers out there, awful mothers, who get to live unpunished, die unpunished, I don’t—

Think about it. You’re thinking about it, I know you are. Now, I hope no one ever stands in the way of you getting your revenge, all right? Or your peace, or whatever it is you need to move forward with your life.

It would be much easier to kill someone and just leave them at their house where they belong anyway, rather than try to get rid of a body from your own house. Okay, now I’m starting to think you’re a murderer.

Ralph would say he doesn’t think anyone deserves to die, but in his deepest, truest filth he knows that some people do.