My life is nothing like a book. It is nothing like a newspaper article. It does not compare to the beginning or the end of a horror movie. It is much, much more intense. The stage of my life consists of two main characters, me and my mother. There is no father on stage and a soliloquy is never presented by him. He is not a part of my long hood of breath. He has not been there since the day my life was written.

I was five years old when he died. He suffered a chronic painful stroke that took his life away. I believe it was god telling him his heart did not have enough love to live off of. He drank to build a mist of happiness over the unfortunate events that kept taking place. He was the kind of man to hurt, to simper at the use of pain. He had no problem swinging his arm towards my pale cheek. He called it a rose guarded. His hands would hit with just enough force to leave a perfect row of scarlet blood cells to take the shape of a rose’s figure. Drinking didn't make a strong effect on his personality. He was the same obscure man that swung at me without a drop of whiskey. When he was intoxicated a perfect fume of liquor would roll off his stained teeth and make me dizzy. He is one of the reasons I am telling an experience, not a story or a newspaper article. It was my experience.

Each eye had a gloss of clear, bright the blue ring that circled her pupil. Her lips were the same crimson color that stereotyped anger. The hair that fell from her scalp landed right before her butt, it was dark enough to see your own reflection. The one thing that caught people’s eye was her smile. Each individual tooth smiled. They put on a show for the crowd every time the curtains of her mouth opened wide and long. Her crimson lips stretched as far west and east to her face to create the perfect pattern of beauty. She was not the same as a princess of a fairy tale character, she was real. She was my mother.

I called her mama throughout my daddy days. I looked at her with virtue and treasure until my dad left. I saw her with passion and something to live for. She had this ability to turn the world around in her head and make everything okay. She was affected by my father’s vast body mass just as well as I was. She sometimes got it worse.

Under the bruised and harmed skin, she was successful and greeted the world with each individual smiling tooth. She never mentioned her harm because she felt negativity was uglier than any scratch on the surface. She always told Jane the same line after another mark appeared on her.

“There was always a polka-dotted ending.” Then she would explain herself.

“ Not everyone's slate is going to be clear and pale. Everyone's life will be full of happy yellow dots and those desperate times that stain your slate black. But, in the end the brighter colors always stand out and the black is simply naked to eyes and blinded by the positivity of all the other colors.”

The year my father left, was the year he burned a permanent dark black hole on her slate. He took every other color and mixed it together to give her the darkest pockmark to shadow the rest of her clean slate. He gave her the darkness of depression.

At first the departure of my father’s abusive hands left a blessed visage on both of our bruised faces. It was only a month later when she realized she was alone. She no longer had a guide, a help, the sensation of knowing she will have a beating. She lost her ways between wrong and right. She had it planted that she deserved to be punished. His evil plan of slowly changing her well being took place. She stopped smiling eventually. Each smiling tooth in her mouth put on a yellow dress and black top hat and said it's good byes to the world. Her Long beautiful hair came about in all areas of the house. It left her head dotted with white bald spots. Her glazed blue eyes had a tone of lewdness pasted around the ring of her sight. She cried out salinity and ruined the clothes she lived in. Later on, she began to disintegrate deeper and deeper into the depth of unwanted.

She began to notice her ugliness and covered it up by losing her sight to whiskey. You could hear the cheap baby blue eyeshadow calling for help as it is pushed against the top of her eye lids. Every morning you could listen to her wobble to the kitchen to obtain a cup of coffee. She would tilt her head back and chase an aspirin with a swallow of black coffee. On the bottom of every coffee cup her name was written across the warm surface. It wrote Maria's Cup. She did this to all her cups, just so that one day when she had the courage to get up and leave she could take her cups with her and state in the divorce court room. “ They had my name on them!” But the name just melted away. She never got the courage to leave. She became more and more afraid of the strength my father was gaining. I thought about running away but I didn't believe in it. The stupidity of someone leaving without the courage to live on their own disgusted me. Although I have packed my bags once before. I have walked out the door only carrying a coffee cup with polka-dots and a mirror. I carried a small backpack full of clothing that would suit up to three nights. I didn't want to take anything else because it was all bought by my father. The mirror was to give myself that little reminder that I am strong. There is always going to be someone watching and notice my success no matter if it was just her looking at her own eyes in a reflection. That was the day I went back on my word and faced an incident that changed my life.

I got a phone call from a foreboding voice. It threw out words as if they were harming her and she was trying to get rid of them. They were fast so I asked her to repeat herself. She did in the same manner. Then I told the young women to calm herself and she repeated herself; “ Your mother, She is here... In the hospital. She had a drug overdose.. She wanted me to call you. She is scared and alone. Do you know of anyone else I need to notify?” Silence tickled the phone line.

I answered, “ No, I am it. I will be there as soon as I can!”

When I arrived to the hospital I walked through the sliding glass doors. They had a rude opening. They took their sweet time gently giving me a pathway. I felt helpless. They didn't open fast enough. I remember looking in the reflection and seeing a tear roll down my face and slowly tuck and abandon under my chin. The doors were teasing me; I could see my mom’s room number right through them. When I finally bolted past the doors I saw her. She laid on her bed. Her skin was as tight as the white sheets she laid on.

She leaned over and said, "Hi, sweetie" her voice sounded like a cry with no muffler. She sat up straight in her bed. Her eyes were no longer blue they were now just a plain grey. I hopped up on her lap and squeezed her so tightly. I hugged her with mighty force. I felt like a strong wave that kept consuming more and more water to build its body and she was the small particle of sand that would swept in my hug. I was terrified. I remember her staring at me and beginning to cry. She had a teddy bear laying next to her side. The nurse gave it to her. It was a sad looking bear. It had a smile on but its purpose was to be there to watch her die. It was forced to have a smerk. She lied limp. She had bruises under her chin. You could tell she was beating herself before the accident. It was sad but not enough to make me cry. She was already dead. She was a walking breathing corpse. She no longer served a purpose. She erased everything that mattered. She forgot was life's journey was for. She began to cascade into the small crack of darkness.

When she gathered her tears she choked up enough strength to speak. The words left footprints across my heart and memories for the rest of my life.

“ You're so beautiful baby. You are so proud, so confident. You have the ability to shine when a thick layer of black paint wipes you slate clean. I envy you for your strength. You know you are the reason I'm living? You are the reason I am here. I live every morning to see your eyes, to gesture your face. I am sorry I left this world mentally. Whiskey was my wall. It was filled with these pretty pictures of you that made me want to drink. You never understood how important you are to me. You never gave me that look that should let me know. I could feel your pain. I could taste your tears as they ran down to your mouth. I tried so hard to become you. I did a pretty good job at screwing us up huh? I pushed you away with drugs and alcohol and I forgot how important life is. I laced every thought with the taste of fake happiness and dismissed the thought of my real threaded happiness. You are my pink dots. You are my yellows, my baby blues, my polka-dotted spots. You are the reason I could rejuvenate . I love you baby girl, I love you baby girl, I do!”

A small drop of water escaped my eyes. They stained my face with discoloration. I replied as I tongue wrestled the words.

“ I love you too, mama!”

Those were the last words I said to my mother. Those were her final thoughts. That was when the curtain dropped. The stage was only left with one character. The setting changed from a one man funeral and back to home. The outfits changed on set, and the hair and the people. But, the power of love kept the stage alive. There is no book, no news article, and no movie that could compare. There is only the small dots that pollute your life. The ones that stain your history. The ones that look back upon and stare at the beautiful colors. The black dots become naked to my eye. I have lived my slate. I have shared my different chromaticism with you. You have now heard my polka-dotted ending.