My mother demands I share my location with her

because I’m leaving the country.

 

An app on my phone becomes a digital leash.

 

I nearly killed myself throughout my twenties

but now she suddenly gives a fuck where I am.

 

When I was having panic attacks in my

parked car at night

all through my freshman year,

trust that she did not care.

 

“I’m going to know where my child is,”

she says to me.

She brags it to her friends,

showing off her control.

 

I nearly fell into selective mutism

after college

because I felt so angry and invisible.

 

She has never known where I really am.