One.
The first memory I ever have as a child-
I was looking at bars in front of my face
and trying to push myself up long enough to stand above them
but it never really worked.
I never really ever felt tall.
I was an infant, maybe even a toddler.
I remember a man coming over to me
and then everything seems to go dark after that.
Twenty.
As I was sitting in class, I hear my teacher speak
"The earliest memory most of us have is at the age of 5 or 6-
and you don't remember really anything before that and if you do
it's usually because of some type of emotional trauma"
So I began to wonder if that blank part in my mind
is just another repressed memory begging to eat away at me
when the moment is right and I am happy again.
Or will it stay etched in my mind as a blank page
that I will never even get to fill.
and I'm not even sure I want to-
I'm not sure that's something I'm willing to find out..
Seven.
It happened again-
I remember the lap of a stranger and the dark room
clouding around me making a mockery of my retrieval cues.
I'm not sure who I am in this moment.
Eight
Hyper-sexuality takes it's hold on me
and doesn't let me go until-
Thirteen.
The year the memories of that night flooding my retinas
the year my grandmother got sick-
the year who I thought he was moved in,
the year I questioned everything about myself
until I came to grips with who exactly I was
but I don't think I ever did-
because he moved out and cancer moved in
and I lost touch with who I was because
I was too busy being what everyone else wanted from me.
26 absences from school-
sorry Lakota but cancer doesn't have off days
and neither does my mother who's playing caretaker.
My grandma was never my downfall
though there are times I sometime portray it that way,
she was merely just my lighthouse
guiding me home, whenever I was ready to see the light again.
Fourteen.
I tried pills.
Flexril. Clexxa. Effexor. Protonix. Busphar. Vyvanse. Seroquil.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
I either got fat, got acne
or didn't last two months before having a mental breakdown.
The pills fueled the flames within-
they begun to burn every last shred of hope I had left
and it wasn't too long before I tried to end me.
Fifteen.
Still trying more pills.
Sixteen.
Realized the pills weren't working much anymore.
Seventeen.
Started drinking. Stopped listening.
Coping through empty bottles became routine
and I didn't want to stop for anybody.
I began to fill the hole in my heart
and the blackness in my memory with liquid courage-
I hoped something would trigger me into knowing.
I hoped that the more I would drink the more I would remember
but that was *** backwards because most people drink to forget
and somehow I was somewhere in between -
like I was on death row looking forward to my last meal-
but still hoping for some kind of pardon.
Eighteen.
Started therapy. Manic Depression she told me.
Management tactics turn into routine
though I still held a vice grip on that bottle.
Friends brought me back from the dead.
Made me someone worth loving again.
Then I met a boy.
He was awkward and I didn't really trust a thing he said to get me-
I never really trusted anyone anyway, till he kissed me-
proved to me that I was someone worth fighting for
proved to me that everything wasn't so ******* terrible after all.
I decided I didn't really need the bottle anymore-
that the memories weren't so bad because they made me
victorious-
a winner of a never ending battle I will continue to fight
but I will come out on top every single time.
Nineteen.
Went to college.
Shared holidays with a boy I loved for the very first time-
finally felt like I had a family again.
Shared my love for poetry with strangers.
Fell in love with the world again.
Twenty.
Sober. In love.
& I told myself I sure as hell wouldn't make it past eighteen.