It was a ruse from the start.
Ends bled into beginnings and I cruised through the wounds you cut mindlessly.
Don’t act like you didn’t know what you were doing to me.
The ghost of a child at sixteen
barricaded from passing on.

To mom and dad:
I don’t blame you, but where were you when I needed it most?
The only ones who could’ve stopped it
yet I would’ve resented you for it.
I’m sorry that you’ve been forced to raise a wraith.

But that’s what it is to be a mother.
Never letting her child have sleepovers to prevent the inevitable and be resented for it.
How does it hurt to know that the daughter will get herself hurt anyway?
That she thinks she loves the knife carving her apart?
And she won’t realize until twenty why.

But all you see is anger
because worst thing a woman can be is quiet
and that has made me oh so ugly.
But even when I’m loud they still ignore the refusals and take what they want.
My ghost rears its ugly head but it cannot protect me forever.

The worst part is I don’t think you even remember.
I don’t think it’s crossed your half synapsing brain twice.
Don’t you remember locking me in the car in front of my own house?
My parents were in there
and I should’ve been too.
A child.
Don’t you remember you were eighteen and I didn’t even know how to drive yet?
And I’m sure you didn’t even notice the irony of keeping me prisoner with the child lock.

I made so many mistakes,
inconsequential to yours— yet somehow I’m the one paying the eternal price
Most bad history eventually shapes us into better people but I could remove all of you and be much better for it.
She will haunt you forever
and curse you from this life into the next.