Sick

Broken babies everywhere.  Fraught with shredded suffering, nothing soothes or makes them calm.  I am so afraid that I have a very sick mind. 

They scream.  They hurt.  My head throbs with psychic suffering and torment.  I am so very tired of having this twisted space of devastation within me.  Normal is relative but with simple confidence I can say that normal people do not have these images of pain.

Most memories are ones that I can endure but bleeding babies push me towards capacity.  Common people smile at me while daily acquaintances are kind and complimentary. 

If they only knew... 

If they only knew the poison that has washed over my mind.  If only they knew the images that I can never shake.  The oily suds of sin that froth and foam, they will never wash completely clean. 

I wrestle and I twist with these faces until I am overcome with the fear.  My bitter stomach churns as I reach for a familiar metal.  My hands shake with forward reaching regret until the warmth of release stings when mixed with salty tears.

My mind lurches forward as the flashbacks of the past find me unsuspecting.  The mental whiplash leaves me lost as the jarring shock brings me to my knees.  I am begging for an end; a present firmly rooted that is able to withstand the forces of his latent life. 

I am begging for relief before I am sick like him.

Need

From The Pliers: The question that occurs to me tonight as I follow the progress of your reclamation project is, What is the singularly most important thing that any given reader of your blog can do for you, with you, or on your behalf as s/he or reads your words?

To be an effect.  To be affected...

There are remarkably unique readers here.  I wrote to another reader that I want my readers to take from my words exactly what they need, not what I want them to need.  That would be rather selfish of me as I have spent a lifetime being told what to feel, what not to feel, and how to feel.  Here is not the place for that.

I began writing here to keep a journal.  One out of ink and out of nosey hands.  I love my family but one member in particular likes to read my spilled guts.  I'm anonymous here and so I write freely.  I have in fact shared printed pages of this site in person but that is as far as I have gotten.

In my writing you will find love.  I deeply love my daughter and my husband.  On paper I am not capable of love.  I believed that lie for far too long.  Love is what drives me to succeed in this; to excel at being whole. 

My love goes beyond those who live in my home as well.  This is a bold love; a love that hopes and believes for the best.  This love hopes that every time my father calls that he will be calling to tell me he has changed.  This love hopes that my mother found the end of her turmoil.  This love envelops hate, consumes despair and braids the three into something fierce and sharp.  My love for my parents cuts and and shreds but loves these imperfect people because they gave me life and they did not kill me; this is the best I got from them.  Underneath the shards of pain, I love them.  Not for what they did but rather for what they didn't.

In these pages the closed mind, the unscathed will find truth.  There are those who hold tightly to a small little world where nothing all that bad happens.  It does.  To children and adults alike. An awareness can be found here as brutal words are wrapped around the perspective of a small child.  It is hard to ignore.

And lastly, for the broken, for the survivor, for the lost; there is hope.  What I write is only my version of hope so seek your hope out as well.  But take from me what you need even if it is just the smallest understanding that you are not alone. 

Because you are not.

For those who are able, take from me the awareness that there are others like me; your neighbors, your friends, the child in your own child's class who forces a smile but carries a frown that is just a little too deep for a tiny face.

What can a reader do?  Please do not waste my woundings.  Take what you need.

Be an effect.  Be affected by love, truth, hope...

Pink

It stings.  It burns.  I don't want to take a bath but my mother says that I have to.  Soap makes it worse.

He is home so I need to hurry.  He likes to walk in on accident.  I don't understand how it is an accident when the water is running loudly or why he sits down on the toilet lid and stays to rub his pants.  That is not an accident.  An accident is when I spill my milk and get my face slapped.  I don't get to slap him for this accident.

I wish I could.

I turn the water on.  Really hot.  I am a dirty girl and the hot makes my filthy skin red instead of bad.  I turn the light off and peel my clothes into a pile on the floor.  In the dark I can't see my bruises, my scars, or my filth.

The tub begins to fill and I jump in.  I am standing and I can feel the scalding water turn my feet a mottled red.  The doorknob turns and I pray it's my little sister... or even my mother.

It's him.  His obligatory and surprised "OH" is exclaimed as he slides through the door an presses it shut with his back.  He is not surprised and neither am I.

He flips on the light as he is sneering about me bathing in the dark... how weird it is.  He smiles his toothy grin and rubs his hands together in anticipation of his pleasure.  I feel my stomach drop into my privates and I loathe that all too common feeling.

The water continues to run and the tub is nearly full.  I reach to turn it off as he silently shakes his head "NO".  Instead he reaches down and pulls the drain stopper to drain the water simultaneously as it pours from the faucet.

He is not going to sit on the toilet lid this time as he unbuckles his belt.  He motions for me to step out of the tub and silently I obey.  His clothes are peeled off into a pile next to mine and I do nothing. 

I do not scream.

I do not run.

I do not cry.

I slowly turn around the way he likes.

He is heavy as he works to be inside me.  In disgust he mumbles about me being dry.  My stomach is pressed and pounded over and over into the vanity.  The drawer pull rubs me raw. 

I open my smashed shut eyes and there I am.  In the mirror, face to face with the dirty girl.  I focus on her eyes and then I look away to avoid drowning in her dead eyes.  I see her freckles and her stubby nose.  I look a little closer and then I see it.  I see her smile. 

She is his happy girl and her name is Sara.  She is five and she says she is a princess.  Her eyes come alive and sparkle under her blonde eyelashes.  I love her hair because it is not like my own dark and curly hair.  She smiles again as he groans with pleasure.

She is not happy, I know this.  But she is his happy girl.

I am lost in that mirror looking for a way out of those drowning eyes.  Quickly I am rescued as I am pulled away and dropped into the still scalding water.  Ribbons of burning red stream from where I am sitting.  I wince with pain as he rolls his eyes in disgust. 

He takes my towel, the only towel, and cleans himself.  He dresses quickly.  As he buckles his belt he tells me to wash good because I am filthy.  I know this already. He returns the drain stopper shut and then the door opens and shuts and he is gone. 

I sit there until the water is cold.

My skin is no longer red but my bathwater is pink with shame.

Hope

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life. ~ Proverbs 13:12

Hope is an oddity to me.  It is a double-edged sword.  Just enough keeps one going.  Too much can leave one in despair.

Throughout my life I have struggled to sustain a suitable balance between hope and despair.  The two seem to be interrelated for me.

There were days, even moments, where I had hope that my life would improve.  I saw a way out, I found someone who seemed to care for me, I made it through an entire night unharmed...  These things gave me hope.  I was hopeful.

Then there were other days, even moments, where I was filled with despair. My hope was lost.  My heart was sick.  There was no way out, everywhere I turned I was met with hatred or disbelief, I was torn apart at night only to be met with "nothing happened" in the morning...  These things destroyed my hope.  I was hopeless.

My inner struggle between hope and despair kept me alive.  I firmly belive this.  This same struggle keeps me alive, even today.  Too many times I have thought that there was no way out so I surrendered myself to dying.  But over and over hope has surfaced. 

So I fought.  Sometimes I fought against hope.  Sometimes I fought for it.  It was a sickening cycle.  Some days, even now, it is with a sick heart that I press forward.

Today it is with a sick heart that I write.  The enormity of my past is weighing down upon me.  Normalcy seems to be nothing more than a fleeting hope. One step forward, two steps back.  Hope and then despair.  My head is screaming once again.  It seems that everyone want their say.  Everyone wants to be heard.  I am one and they are many.  Today is a day where I am screaming at them to shut the fuck up yet no one hears me.  They drown me out and I feel powerless.

Today that dirty, sweaty man is in every corner, no matter where I turn.  He is smiling, licking his lips, and he is laughing at me.  I tell myself that things are different now; things are better.  He laughs harder.  Despair is setting in and I am feeling myself surrender while keeping one eye slightly open on the off chance that hope is in another corner that I just can't see yet.

Today is despair with a sick heart.  Perhaps tomorrow is hope paired with desire.  One can always hope...