ÉCLATANT | writing

八 TEMPESTAS

Dear Mom,

I had the same dream of drowning in a pitch-black ocean ever since you slammed my bedroom door that night after you were finished screaming at me.

Do you remember? I wasn't giving you the desired reaction, leaving you mostly unsatisfied. I found the argument hypocritical, dumb, and controlling. You found it disrespectful. It didn't matter what the actual truth was, though. You won, mom. No, not won, corrected was the word. You carried out your Christian duties to discipline and correct me as my parent. The raised, bright red skin and the stinging sensation scattered around my aching body that night were proof of that.

Do you remember? While I was sitting at my desk, I began giggling softly. Then the giggling grew into a loud chuckle. It was the type of laugh where your entire body starts shaking violently, where your head bobbles and tilts back, and where you would get concerned looks and whispers if you were in public. That night though, I wasn't in public. I was, unfortunately, in the presence of my strict, demanding mom. I couldn't help it! It was an ironic comedy in a Shakespearean kind of way.

Do you remember? When that howling laughter left my room, I immediately felt the rumbling inside the wooden floor, echoing your heavy footsteps. You angrily lurched open the door and stomped towards me. Your hand wound up in the air before making a clear, crisp sound as it made contact with the back of my head. I could feel the handprint blazing on my scalp as it made contact. My petite frame and neck jerked forward from the impact.

Do you remember? That night, I questioned if God was real. Because if he was, this entire situation was fucked up. I remember you yelling too.

"You think this is funny? Disrespecting me and being disobedient is funny to you? You should be apologizing to me right now. Not laughing."

I think I continued laughing that night. I turned to confront you: you, my abuser, my mother. I remember yelling back too.

"You're just like him. And what an excellent example he was! Right? A great pastor and husband. Hit me again. I bet you'll make him proud. You can even hit me where he used to. No, actually, you can hit me where he used to hit you," I remember an unnatural grin appearing on my visage as I leaned my face towards your right hand to deliver my left cheek at a perfect angle for you. 

"I said, do it. Slap me. Don't act all righteous now," I remember tears threatening to spill from the corner of my eyes until one finally dripped to stain the red puffy skin. You dropped your hand and walked out of my room in silence. But don't be fooled; I felt tortured in other ways psychologically, even when you stopped physically.

Well, if you don't, that's fine.

Now, back to my cutthroat nightmares. I started meeting this demoness every night. Well, I guess not meet. She was always on the shore looking at me pitifully as I drowned. Her ebony hair and emerald green eyes bewitched me. She unnaturally became my new obsession.

In this dream, a gigantic tide would drag me back down into the dead depths when I tried to resurface myself to breathe—even a microscopic amount of oxygen to relieve my burning throat and lungs.

I thought nothing of it at first. It was a nightmare that could never hurt me in real life. But as each night passed, I was suffocating more and more as these inky waves filled up my shriveled, weak body. Those waves changed the color of my soul. I was scared–no, terrified as the darkness seeped and soaked into my body—my mind.

Amongst the chaos, that demoness, no, goddess, was always in my dreams to lead me astray from that ocean. She was always waiting for me by the shore to comfort me. She held me tenderly as I violently coughed up the oil-like water. Was she a demoness in a nightmare if she cared for me more than my mother?

She was patient, charming, and so kind. Her warmth embraced me back into her arms again and again. It was basic common sense that everything from this...this beautiful woman's wine-colored lips would be venomous nonsense that filled my every pore. I learned to repent and turn to the Lord at church, I did, and I promise I did.

But how can you blame me?!

She felt like a savior to me. She was the only one who would stay even after seeing my scars—the truth. So even though I knew she was a scheming criminal in the eyes of God up to no good, I crawled back to her. Mother! You have to understand! I am not a sinner for wanting to be soothed in my emotions and loved unconditionally. 

How can it be my fault that the church and my own parents never showed me the same grace as a demoness? How is it my fault that I was abandoned?

She, that sacrilegious idol from another world, was the only one I could and can trust—more than I could ever trust you.