Happy Mother's Day, Mofos.

Here's hoping that yours was just lovely, unlike mine, as this year I didn't receive any presents, nor did I get a card or phone call. No, the selfish children I never had did not remember me this year. When I think back on the nine months I didn't carry my children, the vomit I did not puke up every morning, the grueling hours of labor I didn't suffer at their expense, and the man I didn't stay with until they were old enough to move out of the house I did not buy with my hard-earned money —



I didn't wallow in self-pity this Mother's Day, though I had every right to. Instead, I slept in late. And since nobody thought to bring me breakfast in bed, I got up and made my own oatmeal with sliced apricots and coffee, black. Not.

It's nothing new. For the past twenty years of my life I haven't stolen out of bed before everyone else, slipped into my housecoat, and prepared a healthy meal with my loving hands, come rain or shine. Nobody depended on me to do so. It was a small sacrifice that I did not make, prompted by a mother's love, which I lack entirely.

When I undress at night and notice the stretch marks that don't form rivulets of scars on my once-distended breasts and abdomen, I don't rejoice in the absolute miracle of my fertile womb, perhaps because I do not have one.

Yes, it is the thought that counts, and maybe next year the babies I didn't give birth to will remember the woman who didn't bother to have them. A little thanks is all I ask on this one day of the year. Thanks in the form of presents. In truth, I'll just throw away the cards without reading them, should I ever receive them. But not before I've looked to see if there's any cash inside the envelopes.