Original subtitles

My mother said she wished I was never born.

I looked at her, offered a small smile, and walked away.

Tears slipped down my face, but at least she didn't see them.

Mom got pregnant at 16.

She wanted to abort me.

Raising a child while she was still a child herself and poor, it would have

too much. But I refused to leave.

Stubborn, unyielding, no drug, no concoction worked.

It must have felt like I had a vendetta against her.

Even when she tried to leave me at the fire station, I screamed so loud she

carried me back.

From then on, I followed her around like a shadow, a reminder, a burden she

could never set down.

My existence made everything heavier for her. She felt like Jesus, like she had

to die so that I might live.

And with no one to help, her life became only this, working and caring for me.

But working wasn't enough, caring wasn't enough.

life drained her dry so she reached for bottles instead of hope for smoke

instead of prayers for silence instead of conversation i watched her drink her

life away slowly almost daily and i believed it was my fault everything was

fault her frustration her bitterness all traced back to my existence and so i

learned guilt before i learned math I carried shame before I carried books.

I wore responsibility like hand -me -down clothes, too big for me, but mine

the same. I swore I'd never love her, or at least I'd try to stop loving her,

because loving her hurt too much. But love is a stubborn shadow.

No matter how many times I turned away, it followed me.

Every once in a while, on my birthdays, she cupped my face in her hands.

looked at me as if I were holy and whispered that she loved me, and I

believe her, wanted to hold on to those words like life rafts in a storm.

But storms don't end with whispers, and her love came and went like passing

weather. I never understood her, or her kind of loving, so I swore I'd never be

like her. I swore I'd never let my child feel unwanted, unworthy, unloved.

I swore I'd never pass down the silence, the shame, the scars.

I swore I'd be different.

Until I got pregnant at 16.