I let my breath go
Please don’t let me be a statistic
I cry into my mothers arms, the first time I told her of my abuse.
I refuse.
I will not let someone else feel what I have felt.
They shouldn’t have to understand what it’s like.
I hold my breath
I hate it
I hate that I can’t be touched
I can’t even hug someone without feeling like I might throw-up.
I hate that I can’t sleep alone in the dark.
“You’re still afraid of the dark?” “Aren’t you a little old for that?” “Nothing is going to hurt you”
That won’t stop the nightmares
The memories that won’t ever go to rest.
It won’t stop him
He makes appearances throughout the night.
He’s hiding in my closet, outside my door.
I know he’s not there but still I can’t sleep.
I can hardly even breathe.
This fire that burns far to close to me,
It is burning in my basement, in the bathroom, in his bedroom.
There isn’t a lot that I remember
I won’t say I wish I could
Missing pieces, blank pages, things that don’t make sense
And now I’m left in tatters, cracked, alone and afraid.
Scars that you can’t see, hurt I try to hide.
My blood is screaming and no one seems to notice.
This can’t be all there is,
I’m missing something,
Or do I have something I shouldn’t?
A brothers love, is that what I was?
Mom do you remember what I told you
Did you understand the words I said?
Or did you ignore it because your first born is perfect,
He gets a second chance
And a third and a fourth
And all I get is “How do you know?”
You say you believe me but I know that you don’t
Because if you’d’ve believed me than you’d’ve had to admit that your family wasn’t perfect.
Is it perfect now?
Dad do you remember our talk in the garage?
Do you remember saying that this happens all the time,
And that it shouldn’t.
But you only meant it shouldn’t happen here,
In your perfect house where all of your kids are perfect,
Almost.
Perfect, what you’ve convinced me I have to be,
Because when I’m not perfect dad gets mad
And when dad is mad, him and mom fight.
Screaming and slamming doors,
Forgetting their little girl who cries if anyone yells.
Forgetting their little girl who questions why people look at her the way they do,
Forgetting their little girl who is afraid of being touched
Because even though she can’t remember everything she knows,
She knows it happened.
Four years old it started,
Five years old, did it stop?
Eleven years old, she started remembering,
Twelve years old, wishing she couldn’t,
Thirteen years old, telling them,
Fourteen years old, being told she was wrong,
Fifteen years old, still having to convince everyone that even though she didn’t remember everything that it still happened,
Fifteen, having him move back into the house,
Fifteen, locking the bedroom door, locking the bathroom door and still being afraid to take her clothes off, still not wanting to take a shower because all of the memories and all of the truths and all of the things she’d been running from won’t go away.
All of my memories and everything I tried to forget won’t go away,
It won’t go away until the day i’m in the ground,
It won’t go away until I don’t wake up at two in the morning crying because I was remembering again,
Until the day I’m not afraid,
Until the day someone believes me.
I was supposed to be normal
My family was supposed to be normal
But it’s not, I’m not.
And I still can’t breathe.