Why must my mother get out of bed at 4:30 am most mornings to work- so my sister may have breakfast that morning? To pay her electric bill, to buy shampoo? Maybe this time the nice one, the one that cost $9 instead of 5.

It is 10 am. Fresh smoothies are delivered just now, by the sexy portuguese delivery boy that cost 2 pounds extra. We drink them. Fuck and fall back asleep. Maybe I’ll go for a run, or we’ll go for a walk in the park, watch the dogs and talk about what we will name our children. Sebastian maybe? Oh but he must be called Bastian, I hate the name Seb.


My mother has been working for five hours so far.


We return home. I’ll read, call my tired mother, and she will coo to me “I’ll see you soon, my love” as I lie to her about how stressed, so busy I am. I go back to bed.

Later, we boil ourselves in long baths with sickly sweet bath bombs. The house smells like sugar and peonies. I hate pink.

It is somehow 4:00 in the afternoon. Belly bloated with my own leisure.

It’s time to go out? Where? Dinner.

Primal because we need to eat and that lives under the veil of “need”. Need Nobu? No, yes if you’re paying.

That evening, I eat and drink hundreds of pounds of some elses’ money. I want the martini with lavender, can you taste lavender?

I wonder what my mother is doing.

I am wearing a dress I have had since I was fifteen, it cost $27. It was a big deal when I got it. It was more exciting than right now.

I am the most beautiful girl in the room. Am I?

My shoes are really dirty. I feel poor. I try and hide my feet. I am a phony.

We cab back to the apartment, someone else pays.

Boredom. Everything looks stupid.

Instagram in my cheap dress in that beautiful restaurant, done. Praise and admiration and envy and I feel elite. My payment is company earning me the right to make others feel unaccomplished. Is that wrong? I have worked so hard for this. I deserve to be here.


No I don’t, it’s not mine.

But my life is, and I seize my life and what it can be.


My mother is finally home, sick with exhaustion and still stressed that she didn’t do enough, that she cannot provide enough for me.

I go to sleep early. I remember where I came from.

I cripple under new wealth and bow down to my past.

Was I happier then?