Early.
I became the bottom of a shoe. Worthless, unwarranted, but there, needed.
Rubber and worn, worn away to the thinnest part, and still used.
Hands became words, and hugs became extinct, tears became invisible, the 'childhood' was erased.
Diabetes became my mother, known as rejection, and depression, her twin, known as rage.
Insulin and Fluoxetine became my equally demanding toddlers; I was feeding a family of 6 at the age of 8.
Later.
I watched my brother become a tortured child, in his sleep - the sound of his waterproof sheets would keep me awake, as i lay worried that his screams were words he could not utter at his age.
I watched my sister grow cold as she watch her house burning down around her, and crying tears at the loss of her childhood, her eyes burned at me.
As i looked in the mirror, when i cried, i would flush the toilet just to hear what it feels like to be washed away.
Disappeared down the drain.
I shrunk 4 inches in 4 years, one inch for each bottle of poison, that said 'drink me'.
I shrunk 4 inches in another 4 years for every word that said 'eat me'.
I shrunk so that I could not grow, up.
Later still.
I became broken, hard to 'fix'.
I became lost, without a cause.
I became the rebel, odd-one-out.
Family grew fractured, broken mirrors lay on all our floors, that we skirted around, lest we should bled it all out, what had happened.
Relationships broke, one after another, after, another, after, another, after....
Faces lost feeling, words became laws, feelings became problems, love became, raw and unused.
We dissipated, dissolved, into a million pieces of broken, into the world, held together by very thin words of 'family'
Now.
I am not a child anymore.
It's time to be heard.