Wasting her Breath.

Wasting her breath.

“Well, my little one, you really shouldn’t be here at all. I’m glad I had empty bowels when I shoved you out during that last furlong. Crap and an undignified position would just have been too much. You can thank or curse alcohol for you being here at all when you get older.

“For a start, you got the shitty end of the stick when you got me. However, I did refrain from the dreaded booze once I knew you had taken residence. Even I couldn’t live with myself to add the burden of FASDs onto your plate. It sounds alright as initials, but I assure you that you getting pissed whilst in the womb is definitely infra dig.

“I’m not sure if I’m going to be around for very long with you, as I think you’d almost certainly have a better life with someone else. That’s a shitty thing to say, I know, I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. I should have said, go to people who’ll want you. People who’ll shower you with all the things I certainly wouldn’t, in trying to make up for the things they fucked up in their own sorry existence. So, I do make this pledge to you, I’ll do my best to sort out a half-decent family for you. I know it’ll be a ‘pig in a poke,’ but I’ll do my best.

“I haven’t touched a drop of booze since I knew you were there. I do fervently hope that I found out about you in time. If not, well there’s always the bridge or a tall building. I’m not being callous, but practical. Who in God’s name would want to hang around if life’s not worth a tin of shit? I’ve done my best so far, but I certainly don’t want you hanging around with this disreputable apology of a mother who just might be looking for a tall building herself.

“The strange thing is, little one, I started out with a hiss and a roar. I had everything going for me that you could wish for. Loving and wealthy parents. An early education which unfortunately got fucked up because of corporate wrangling. My family lost everything, then consoling themselves with booze, they took themselves off of a bridge in a car, ‘accidentally.’ Literally poor, little old me got shovelled around, pillar to post by inhuman bureaucrats.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m getting maudlin and that won’t do on your first day in this fine world - if you’re lucky. If I was young, I’d think of keeping you, but that’s my hormones talking now. But I’m old. Much too old to have a kid, well I think so. You need to be young and foolish to have a kid, that is, without someone to share the burden. For it is a burden. You’re gonna be an encumbrance until you leave the nest and then be burdened yourself. As I said, I’ll try to start you off right. The family that gets you will definitely not be boozers like your’s truly. So, you may be in for a boring childhood.

“I wish I could tell you some of the things not to do, but like the rest of us, you’ll fuck up and have wonderful hindsight vision. I’m afraid that’s the nature of the beast called life, girl. Things will seem so obvious later on. You’ll castigate yourself as to why you dropped your pants for this cock-sucker, he hadn’t even had a decent conversation in him? Sorry, again, I’m rambling, but I look back and realise I didn’t even like him and I rushed to get my legs in the air.

“I’m afraid I may have left you with a very defective gene which you are going to have to guard against, or in a few years, you’ll be lying in my place wondering what the fuck happened.

“I’d leave you a note, but you can see that ain’t gonna go in a scrap-book with your future family, so I’ll just tell you a few things which I wish I’d followed myself. Maybe some sensibility will seep in on a weird level, but if you could just understand one simple thing which is, ‘don’t resist.’ I don’t mean, ‘just lie back and think of England,’ that’s apathy. No, don’t go through life resisting, do something about it. I wish I listened to my own advice, but I didn’t. So you can see why I’m going to try to give you a good, well, the best start I can.

“I think I can pick the pedos so you won’t get one of those to screw you up early. And I’ll try to stay sober until you’re off my hands. I’ve screwed up my own life, and it’s the only decent thing I can do is not screw up yours by keeping you. Being ‘on the game’ is not the romantic thing you’ll sometimes see portrayed. No, it’s bam, bam, usually with someone trying to take it out on his wife. Most of the men are sorry spectacles, not all, but most. I can’t recommend it as a profession, legal or not. Be judicious who you open your legs for, girl.

“I really don’t know why you’re here. I could have had two others, but I let them go. I don’t know why I hung on to you. Maybe I was going through my religious phase. That’s what we drunks do at times. We get desperate and throw common sense to the wind and try it out on our knees. It couldn’t have lasted long, but it was long enough that you’d grown too big. Even then, I didn’t hit the bottle, I couldn’t do that to you. I still don’t really know how I managed it, but I did. But believe me, not for much longer. I gave up the weed, also, for you, and that was hard as hell. Shit, you’ll have me praying again if I keep up this bloody maudlin lark. It’s just the hormones talking.

“As I said, I started off well. Had everything going for me then I must have gotten onto God’s better side because he favoured me by putting me through the wringer. Don’t ever try to get on his good side, because he’ll make life hell for you if he likes you. Must be something to do with what doesn’t kill you, makes you better. I could have done with a good bit of ignoring if he was up for it.

“No, no, I’m kidding. What I did, I did. I can almost see the deliberation that went into my decisions to be irresponsible. A ‘Devil may care’ attitude may get you by if you’re rich, but it’s a bastard when you’re poor. I brought it on myself, and I’m pretty sure I won’t change. So, girl, I won’t even name you in my head, but I hope they call you Amazing. Fantastic. Wonderful, or something like that. I’m going to go to sleep now with a smile on my face as I can hear a bottle of something calling out to me that it's lonely on its own.