Smile

My chest is pounding quick and frantic lumps.  I hear the feet crush the padding of the carpet.  It is only a whisper but I feel those steps ring inside my ears.  I bury further under my thin and naked sheet in hopes that I will turn invisible before the feet reach my room.

I squish my eyes until I see colors blur behind my eyelids.  I love this trick because it makes the darkness not so scary.  My door opens and then shuts and a shadowed figure moves towards my too small bed.  If my bed was bigger I think I could get away. 

A cold and metal finger presses against my tiny, trembling lips.  This finger has a jagged edge and as it presses further I feel a pop from my lip and a taste of metallic blood.  Shhhhh... is what this finger says without a sound or word.  I simply know.

My only screams tonight will echo inside the halls of my head.  Echoing because no one hears them.  My screams bounce and rattle around, desperate and lonely.

His other hand roams around and past my naked sheet.  There is nothing to hide behind.  Up one leg and rubbing down the other he moves deliberately and with purpose.  His breathing is quick and matches my own fearful panting.  With one knee he pins one small leg.  And with the other he has now widened my fearful body into a grown-up X.

One sweaty hand.  One jagged, steely cold finger. 

Don't move an muscle... don't you make a sound... you are too small... going to make you bigger, little girl. 

The sharp and jagged finger is cold against my anxious skin.  Skin is popping.  Widening pain. And my terror is stretched further than ever before.  Jasmin slips in front and I fade into James' hurting arms.  He is heavy upon me and he smiles a strange and upside down smile.  

I will never forget that hateful smile.  And I will never see him again.  He is dead.

For sure.

Badness

I am learning there were two versions of truth. 

His truth.

And then the truth. 

Forgive me because none of this is black or white.  Nothing is as it seems and this is so fucking confusing.  Ever since I received this news I have had an overwhelming sense of guilt.  Shame.  In little kid terms... badness.

Small voices repeat... bad people get killed... he was bad... he was our dad... so we are bad... over and over and over.  These are anxious words wrapped with fear.  Fear that we are next.  An irrational fear yet a real anxiety.

How could I be good yet come from them?  I get that they were bad.  Exceptionally bad.  So how did I get here when badness raised me?

Bad little kids don't have parents... If you tell then you will get taken away...  And then you won't have parents... Because you were bad.

And now we have no parents.

Quite honestly, I am lost.  I pace the floors all night.  My chest is full with pounding butterflies.  I stare at the food on each plate.  A cold sweat overcomes me with each police car I see.  My mind wanders through each day waiting for that phone call.  The call that makes this all official and I wonder how it will go.  I wonder how I will react.  And what I fear the most is that I will have no reaction whatsoever.

And in that lack of reaction, my badness will commence.

Conflicted

Life seems to be measured best in approximates currently.  I have a difficult time explaining that I am fine, sad, good, grieving, angry, or relieved.  Approximate values, however, can be assigned to the various feelings. 

Approximating allows me to change.  To fluctuate.  To estimate something that may change at a later time.  This works because I am nearly every conflicting feeling all rolled into one.  Conflicted is perhaps the only feeling that is consistent.  Conflicted is my stalwart feeling.  My rock.  It is always there.  No matter what.

I love him.  I hate him.

I need him.  I do not want him.

I trust him.  He hurts me.

conflict.  Conflict.  CONFLICT. 

No matter how you shape it, spell it, or write it; it is there.

Chances are, it is him.  In my gut I feel it.  And from that feeling I know that death is  the worst feeling a stomach can own.  With each moment of decay, that rotting feeling in my own body grows.  His decay is my decay.  I cannot eat, drink, or sleep.  I am terrified that in my sleep I will not wake up and in that time we will meet.

More alive than ever before; he is in my nightmares.  His rotting flesh makes my own creep with fear.  His missing fingers I have found.  They are in my sleep and reaching towards me.

Once awake I am sad.  And I am guilty.  I survived and I fear I did not do enough to save him.  I did not make him a better father.  A better husband.  Nor a better human.  That one more chance I withheld.  Buried beneath my fears, his chance died an unnatural death.

Could I have done something more? 

Loved him better?

Loved him differently?

Hated him completely?

My head and my heart are conflicted.  And my memories are conflicted too. 

I remember the man who bought me a treasured doll.  I remember the man who brought me ice cream home from the store.  I remember a man that patted me on the head.  I remember the man who gave me my love of reading.  I remember the man who gave me my first dog. 

And then...

I remember that same man who destroyed my favorite doll.  Who starved me for doing wrong.  Who brutally raped me.  Who tore up my favorite books.  Who killed my beloved dog.

And then I am conflicted.  And I hurt.

*Sigh*

It has been a collective *sigh* kind of week for me.  And a collective upheaval.

I am still terribly conflicted over this impending death and I still do not have it sorted out.  I have taken this weekend for myself; to feel how I need to feel. 

It is a slow going process.

So while I have not been writing here; I have lots to say.  I am truly grateful for the thoughts that all my readers have shared and I am hopeful to be back in the next day or so to respond and share more of where I am at.

Thank you.