Kirsten; like any wicked step mother you’d read about in children’s story books.
Her presented facade dissolved quickly with days passing since we arrived to reside in her home.
Ample kindness mixed with my first real impression of what narcissistic personality looked like.
Classically she had no children of her own at the time she was exactly the age I am now as I pen this unpleasant memory.
Oddly enough our body types are nearly identical though she was taller with short curly hair often chemically relaxed and dyed a darkened shade of red.
She was the only example of a plus size woman I’d ever interacted with; with a large chest I wished to resemble  when I grew up.
I was eleven at the time and extremely flat chested though I’d developed rosebuds when I was five being the overweight child.
Kirsten loved us- or she pretended detrimentally.
We bonded over the two plump tabby cats she owned though I detested doing the litter- being guilted into it because she had multiple sclerosis although argumentatively she’d have done the litter herself long before I came along.
Adult excuses though whereas her illness was real she didn’t really do much of anything after we came along.
Normalcy was just that at first- family sit down dinners around this white table with cylindrical chairs specked grey and white cushions.
I’d always be yelled at for crossing my one leg under my rear as I’d sit.
“You’ll break the chair that way, stop it” they said on the regular as I’d never remember.
Truthfully that position was comfortable and the chairs never broke.
One resided in my fathers empty home till a week ago- as strong as back in 2001.
Dad and Kirsten were heavy smokers at that point, chain smoking regularly in the front room of Dudley street though the smell would seep through the crevasse and deposit itself remarkably amongst the house.
She’d buy me identical clothes to her- one pink and white fuzzy sweater in particular then berate me for copying her. After all, a very narcissistic thing to do with me being  ******* eleven.
I loved that woman more than I’d care to admit.
She was my first motherly figure after being removed from the home of my severely mentally ill birth mother- she was still a form of normalcy though our relationship deteriorated unrealistically quick.
Before the family split up; we had a sit down dinner though Kirsten wasn’t present.
Having an MS flare I asked how she was when she trapped past the kitchen table toward the washroom.
Innocently enough, I was not prepared for the extremely violent outburst directed toward me- 12 at the time.
For the life of me I don’t recall the words though something like how much she did for our ungrateful family and I ran off to my bedroom without dinner crying from this unwarranted attack.
Everything changed after that point.
That was one of the only times my father emotionally soothed me; their life deteriorated into nightly fights and our fairytale life traversed into a puff of dust.
Kirsten was a dangerous reoccurrence for years after though the veil of particular wonderment was long forgotten.
I needed a protective female presence though I received a covert narcissistic *******.
C’est la vie.

“I wanted to be happy”
The words crept from my lips like scurrying little spiders when their home disturbed amongst darkened cobwebs in an untouched dingy room
Intrusive thoughts
Dismaying salvation of pathologized compliance
Masking behaviour for acceptance
“Stop spinning in that chair- it’s annoying”
Self expression became punishable
Dismaying youth- retribution beyond reasonable understanding
Belted and crying
Please stop, it hurts
Fearful avoidance
Nothing feels safe
Transmitting adulthood with repressed memories though awakened by medical emergency of your cat
Navigating uncertainty since July; desperately attempting to understand inner workings of trauma brain
Complex post traumatic stress disorder
Medical diagnosis though intrusive thoughts still catastrophic
Chronic pain with desolation
Desperately craving the touch of another human
Covid times; worsening depression combatting betraying myself with fathers abusive words while unproductively masquerading oversleeping
Powerlifting self regulation though collapsing under the bar.
If they wanted to talk to you
They would make effort
Though I still fawn my way to self acceptance
After all;
That’s what my parents taught me to do.

We sit around my aunts brown kitchen table
A scene we’ve done a thousand times before where I slinked unnoticed behind my hair until it was turn to recite my yearly accomplishments.
Back into the shadows.
This time is different.
This time my father is dead.
Suicide.
He went missing 24 hours before.
“Your fathers illness took him”
He was diagnosed with a neurological disease months prior.
We never spoke.
No it didn’t, my brain screamed.
Suicide.
I run to the kitchen in panic trying to find clonizapam which I almost never take cause I’m afraid of pills.
“What are you taking, doing drugs won’t numb your pain”.
He’s a cop, of course anxiety meds would be seen as “drug addiction”.
“I’m having a panic attack” I muster, angrily from the displaced shame.
I don’t take the pill out of spite and we don’t say anything on the 30 minute drive to his house.
I’m probably sheet white, I feel anxious.
I feel nothing.
I haven’t cried.
We had a terrible relationship, dad and I.
Terrible.
Suicide.
Hours pass.
Minutes?
I dunno, I’m dissociating into everyone’s grief.
Stop talking to me.
I don’t want to be here.  
So many unanswered questions, ones I still don’t know nearly a year later.
Silence and awkwardness.
I sit at the head of their table and avoid everyone’s eyes except my little brothers.
They’re all staring at me, finally paying attention to me after so long.
I hate it.
I want to disappear, their eyes like pathetic little daggers of sadness.
Why the **** am I here?
Someone mentions my tattoos.
Yeah.
I have tattoos.
Tattooed hands, and a dead father.
I only cry when my brother does.
Telling him it’s a suicide, a face I’ll never forget and my soul left behind at the death of his innocence.
Nothing left to protect.
Our father is dead.
6 days till the year death anniversary.
I don’t cry as much as I had after the veil finally shattered.
I’ve never known depression like that; though I was able to find myself after severe heartache.
A traumatized youth.
C-ptsd.
Pass me the join, I need to sleep.

The delicate curvature of your lips
Swirling arousal around my hips
Trailing deliciously intimate kisses
Until you’re enjoying yourself amongst my soft inner thighs;
Warmth trailing by moonlight
We kiss and the night is lost within your deep blue eyes.

You tell me you love me
(No one loves me)
You tell me people care
(I am alone)
You say I am beautiful
(I am ugly)
You tell me it gets better
(It won’t)

I never believe you that it gets better
But it always does

You walk up to the porch, muddy boots disturbing settled dust
Looking down, you proceed to wipe boots off
I cringe slightly as muck settles into my crevices
You finish your task and step onward toward warmth, leaving your wake behind
***** and dripping wet
“Let me get the door for you”, I say happily  as I brush the dirt off my clothes following you inside.