Take a picture. It really will last longer. I mean, wouldn't you like to have a picture of certain things, certain memories, like for instance Fred? Well, of course you would, it's been so long since he left. You can hardly remember some stuff now, like did he have brown hair or blonde hair, or was it kind of dirty blonde? And are you just remembering wrong, or did the lines going from his mouth to his nose kind of make him look like a big cat, like a big sleepy panther? Did he really play "Maggie May" just for you on his guitar? Did he really wake you up some mornings for school, singing, Wake up, Maggie, I think I got somethin' to say to you? Your mom used to yell when he did that, right? She hated noise in the mornings, she used to sleep late with the blinds shut and the sheets all wound round and round her. Mummy Mommy, you called her when you were little, and she'd slap your face and tell you to get out and let mommy sleep for christ's sake. You probably wouldn't want a picture of that.
Nor of the others, either, since none of them gave a shit about you; but you do wish your mother would have grabbed a camera, just once, and taken a snapshot of Fred. Fred in his cutoff jean shorts, Fred with his long maybe-blonde-maybe-brown ponytail sticking out through the back of his Cubs cap. Fred was different. Though you're not sure your mom even had a camera back then. And she wasn't really the picture-taking type; it's not like she ever got sentimental about anybody. She never kept pictures around like other people's mothers. Just lots of empty glasses, all over the mantel and the coffee table, marked with a bright pink kiss on one side. You used to put dandelions in them sometimes.
A picture would have lasted. Longer than Fred did, anyway. Unless you lost the picture, but I mean, what kind of asshole would you be if you lost it? So listen: if you ever do find a picture, really find a good one, you should keep it under your pillow or behind the mirror so your mom can't find it, so you can't ever lose it, so it can't ever go away. Hang on to it like it was your life. Hang onto it like it was the only good thing you ever had.
They are rubber and you are glue. And when Christy Patterson called you a slut, it really stuck to you, didn't it? All the kids at school saw you carrying that name around, right in the middle of your forehead, and because you cried when they said it they knew it was true. And you knew it was true, too, so you let the boys, you let them sometimes put their hands on you and under you and around you and sometimes you let them do more. And sometimes you did the doing.
And you thought, yeah, I deserve it, I do, because Fred had bounced around on top of you, more than a few times, and you didn't tell your mom so you guessed you must have liked it, you must have deserved that label stuck right to you, like dirty cotton balls on clean white paper, like cheap plastic sequins on a watercolor still life.
I know what you are, but what am I? You are a disgusting, filthy whore. I know what you are, Mom, but what am I? You are a liar, a hypocrite, a little shit, a traitor. I know what you are, Mom, but what am I? You are the flipped-up skirt, the quickie in the parking lot, the easy lay in the back seat, the teenage unwed mother, the woman with a string of broken lovers who sometimes sleeps on the bathroom floor, who sometimes weeps on the bathroom floor with the water running so her daughter can't hear. I know what you are Mom, I know what you are, I know, I know, I know. But what will I be?