 [--------------------------------------------------------------------------]
   ooooo   ooooo  .oooooo.  oooooooooooo       HOE E'ZINE RELEASE #510
   `888'   `888' d8P'  `Y8b `888'     `8 
    888     888 888      888 888                "No Regrets, I Never
    888ooooo888 888      888 888oooo8             Asked to Be Born" 
    888     888 888      888 888    "               
    888     888 `88b    d88' 888       o              by Meenk
   o888o   o888o `Y8bood8P' o888ooooood8               3/8/99
 [--------------------------------------------------------------------------]

        I write this for my mother.

        I sit here, inhaling the hot, acid smoke from my Camel, thinking
 about the woman who gave me life.  She wasn't even a year older than I am
 now when I became a part of her life.  Carrying me inside her womb,
 re-shaping her life to accomodate mine.  She probably sat, staring at her
 cigarette smoke, thinking about how she got where she was, exactly like
 me.  We look a lot alike.  I have only seen one picture of her at this
 age, her round belly, two-dimensional in the photograph, encompassing the
 world as I knew it.  I would like to think that she thought fondly of me,
 the unconditional love for a total stranger inside of her permeating her
 thoughts.  Anticipation for the chance to form a person capable of anything
 bringing a smile to her lips as she tenderly caressed her swollen abdomen.
 I don't know, though.  She and I aren't close.  She probably felt a lot of
 regret.  Thoughts like this don't occur until a certain point in your
 life, if at all.  I would ask her, but I am not comfortable with her
 anymore.  To me, she is a stranger.  Soon after she gave birth to me, she
 married my father.

        Maybe that is why I question her feelings about me before I was
 born.  A child with a child, she suffered the pains of expelling me from
 her body, into this world.  All I know of my early life has come from
 stories she has told me.  The dawn of the 1980s, my mother still trying
 to find herself, she tried to make the marriage work.  Stories of violence.
 I don't remember.  She has hundreds of pictures of me, literally learning
 to stand, learning to learn.  I looked happy.  There were few pictures of
 her.  No one wants pictures of sadness and pain.

        I just didn't know any better.  She took me away, possibly saving
 my life.  I never got to express to her my gratitude, how thankful I was
 for her courage.  She worked hard, caring for me the best she could with
 hardly an example from her parents.  Teaching me many things, the best she
 knew how.  Answering my questions to the best of her ability, faking it
 when she couldn't, she brought me up with a lust for life.  She liked to
 move, to experience.  Creating impressions that would not be evident for
 over a decade she explored herself, raising questions in my developing
 mind that I did not know how to ask, yet.  Though I wouldn't have thought
 so at the time, in retrospect, the unconditional love was always there.
 She faced the world alone, fighting not only for herself, but for me too.
 There came a time when the questions I had outnumbered the answers she
 could give.  I was finally able to put into words the concepts developing
 in my head over the years.  What kind of morals did I want?  What kind of
 person did I want to be?  The same questions my mother was trying to
 answer when I came into her life.  The only difference was about 8 years.
 I knew that I was thinking about things which I shouldn't have had to
 worry about for a long time.  She had no answers for me and I was not
 ready to be so independant.  I felt an incredible longing for something
 which she couldn't provide and I hated her for it.  I wasn't yet a teen,
 but already my life was headed in a direction her life could not
 accomodate.

        I left, barely speaking to her since.  I became a woman having only
 the memories of her young, overwhelmed, yet strong and fearless progression
 into womanhood to guide me.  With little guidance from anywhere else, I
 learned from the firsthand experience of my mother's mistakes.  Not just
 stories, but living through the consequences of her choices.  I held a lot
 against her.  I blamed her for a lot of my anguish.  Now, I look in the
 mirror and I see her eyes.  Her wisdom, the lines carved by pain, her
 eagerness for life, and I realize that I love her too.  Unconditionally,
 like she loves me.  I hope one day I will have the chance to thank her.
 She gave me the tools to find myself and for that I will always be
 thankful.  I love you, mom.

 [--------------------------------------------------------------------------]
 [ (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS!      HOE #510 - WRITTEN BY: MEENK - 3/8/99 ]
