Letters from sixteen

A stormy day

Poems written on a rainy day in august.
Tw: CSA/Addiction

In a dawn of a most stormy life
In some ways I view myself as lost, lost for words, unsure where to turn, as if I ever had a clue.
In that same moment I know the woods that I am lost in, I am familiar with their unforgiving ways, I am aware that after some time in this forest you are unlikely to leave, not because you don't want to, but because it's become the only life you can bear to swallow, the only way you will find yourself living into what they call the bitter end.
Many used to tell me I had an awful memory.
They joked as if I didn't remember anything at all, and maybe for them it is nothing more than a laugh, a laugh I shared with them, but it seems this truth is a pile of books to grow taller every day.
The books of what I am able to recall are a short few I always keep in my bag, but it seems there are libraries of what I have forgotten.
I know that the warm feeling will take page by page of what I have left, i have already noticed lines missing from the few books I have,
In my eyes, however destructive this warmth is, I cannot imagine living without it.
The fear that holds me tightest is living without this warmth.
I have seen many people do it, I did it myself for ten months, they gave me a coin, maybe it was purple or blue I can't quite remember.
But things rarely go as planned, and the thought of a life without doesn't just frighten me, it leaves me wondering.
Wondering how many days I could go alone in the cold.
Wondering if there is warmth outside of the bottles I have found it in.
Wondering if life without would ever compare, would ever leave me satisfied.
Although a distinct part of this addiction of mine is that it will never be enough.
I will never be drunk enough, not until the day I choke on my own vomit will I be drunk enough.

I am not permanent
I have attempted to tattoo behind my eyelids that he is not able to hurt me anymore,
But it seems that as much as I may try to, the ink fades and I am placed back to where I once was.
Last night I heard him behind me. I could hear the heavy sound of his breath.
He was not how I perceived him to be, I understood that, but in those moments I am that scared child I once was.
I hide under my blanket. I put on a jacket so he has more to take off, it's not like any of that ever helped, but I needed something, anything, to get the sense that I had tried to stop it.
As much as I know he was not in that bedroom last night, that frightened child needs to be heard, because he never was, so now, after being dragged around, he needs me to see him.
He needs someone to look at him and tell him it's okay to be scared, but he doesn't have to be.

What I am not
I cannot express how much I suffered when I told myself I wanted it.
Every time I remembered what happened I told myself the true terror was nothing but a sick fantasy.
Even alone I would pretend that these memories were nothing but something I had asked for.
In the very back of my mind I knew that it was quite the opposite.
I still wake up begging for him not to.
In the little world I lived in, with the few resources I had, I did everything I could to stop it.
When that didn't work I did everything I could to pretend like it wasn't there.
What has been truly relieving is knowing that I am not any of the people who failed me.
I am not the one who visited a little girl in her bedroom.
I am not the one who didn't notice the glaringly obvious.
And I sure as hell am not the one who didn't do anything to stop it.

Tainted
I truly wonder if I will be able to share a bed with the man I love without worrying what he will do to me.
It feels that my vision is forever colored and tainted by my past.
The anger I hold in me knowing that I may never be able to be held without being terrified of what comes next is something I do not have the words for.
When I talk about this boy I seem to have a crush on, I feel they think I liked it.
I don't think I'm going to hell for who I love, I am not wrong in that, but it feels like dirt I cannot wash off of me.