Children are blank canvases waiting for colors in life to paint them into adults. My mother decided she wanted to paint hers so black it hurt your eyes to look, by the time she realized that was an unfavorable color, the only dingy white left came from the heroin she injected into her body. She shared this impure color to her children refusing to stop for just nine short months. Both of us are left with a reminder, epilepsy and ADHD. I was taken away when I was two, only to return at age five. The birth of my baby sister promoting the belief my mother had wiped her canvas clean. I came when it was Summer in Alaska and the sunshine feels good on your face, but Winter comes quick and hard. One time she accidently burnt me with a cigarette, it was small there was pain that while bearable nagged me for a long time. If I came to her she yelled, I soon learned to just stay quiet even when my stomach screamed. My baby sister screamed too, but it was my fault so I had to stop her by giving her formula two months expired. The grey to black skies of Winter started to be painted on my child heart, but the beautiful clear icicles which I liked to lick were there too. Any comforting color came from the bubbly auras my epilepsy caused, these secretly sinister lights were like friends I welcomed . By the time the CPS workers came it had been eight months. I was six and ready to leave the cold forever.

In California the light is different, its more yellow. Its brightens the colors on every building, every stone and every blade of grass just so vibrant. I absorbed every bit of it I could successfully masking the dark colors an almost 24 hour night forces on you. Now the dark was only left to my dreams which have haunted me ever since. With such a powerful heat I’m not surprised that hate kindled and slowly grew stronger with every day. There is a certain age you and life share the paintbrush that determines who you become. I chose to paint the vivid colors anger givers a person. I heard the hushed conversations of adults, I pieced together a demonic picture of the person I had called mom. I said every bad thing about her I could and took every bit of bad luck against her. I remember stepping on every crack hoping her back would splinter and she would lie in a hospital bed of white truly regretting her mistakes.When she decided to try a few months at rehab every now and then I would talk to her. She babbled on about childish things fairies , magic, and other folklore . She had no idea of the hate I had for her that every fiber in my body burned with it, I had learn to keep these things from her at a young age. Until I was fourteen on the phone I exploded everything came out. The last words I said to her were “I hate you.” I hung up somewhat smug to hear her crying.

I hoped the yelling would cool the hate that i had given a home for so many years but it didn’t. So I pushed it to the back of my mind but it sat there cindering pieces of my soul away. September of my Freshman year came and in P.E we had to hear the testimonies of past addicts. This has always rested heavy on me but then a frail girl with a face sunken in like my birth mothers said “I loved and wanted my family and friends but I needed the drugs.” A single tear, as clear as the icicles I used to lick rolled down my cheek. Suddenly I saw that my hate while I would never admit it was because I had wanted her to love me. I decided when I got home I’d wish her a Happy Late Birthday as I’d missed it a week prior. I told my best friend and he agreed that it was about time. I got home to find my adopted mom wasn’t home, she had the number to call so I’d have wait patiently. I’d been home about an hour and there was a knock at my door. It was a police officer. In drab uneventful seeming clothes.Today she had some news she needed to tell my adopted mother, so I lent her my cell phone and she said that her daughter also my birth mother was dead. She had O.D and was found this morning. Merely thirty-six years old. I want to take back the childish cruelty of the last words I said to her because while hate was hot and vivid it has only left a small burn mark, which is much blacker than the night sky.