She talks to me like I'm a stain on her otherwise perfect life. She thinks of me as a useless constant pain that needs attention. She tells me she's be happy if I were dead. People say that family is earned, not a right. Nineteen years of Indian based morality, "respect you elders, respect you mother and father" drilled in to my head can't be erased. My mother may think of me like a monster, an ungrateful *****, an attention *****, a pathetic excuse for a daughter, and a waste of life but she's my mother.

Sometimes I want to just grab her by her shoulders and say, "STOP IT. Can't you see how this makes me feel?!" But I can't. I have to love her I have to suppress all the anger and hatred towards her, I have to respect her.

When I want to hurt her, when I want to make her stop, when I hate her I turn those feelings to me. I've been home for over a month and I've decorated my legs with almost a hundred new scars. Neat little rows of perfectly sized scars, running down my thighs. I want to make myself stop hating her. I want to make myself love her. I want to kill the anger inside me with a razor.

But as much as I want to rip open my skin and get what I deserve for being a bad daughter, I want to stop. I want to have skin free of the scars that remind me what I am. I want to be able to look at my legs and not think I'm a failure. I want to feel like I am a good daughter again. I want to stop cutting.