Letters from sixteen

My little dark age (second edition)

A chapter written during a difficult time.
TW: CSA

Family dinner
I am unsure how to capture this family dinner that was everything but pretty.
He was yelling, soon I was talking over him, and he put his hands over my mouth.
It brought me back to late nights and being visited by someone who should not have touched me like he did.
I melted into the dinner table.
Please, not again I can't do this again.
Who was intended to hear that I am unsure.
My instinct to hide led me to a locked door in the bathroom.
I cried and tried to catch my breath, I think at that moment I could not be quiet.
I had been forced to keep myself silent for so long, and tonight I could not do it again.
Please, not again, I can't do this again.
I need to leave. I can't stay here.
But there was nowhere to go but the living room.
I told him the story that was left unseen.
Please, not again, I can't do this again.
I asked how he didn't see it, I guess there was no good answer.
I was yelling about how much I loved him in between my moments of anger.
I love you so much, where were you when he was hurting me?
I love you so much, your best was not ever close to good enough.
I love you so much and I can't look you in the eye without being angry in a way I have no words to express.
Please, not again, I can't do this again.
He asked me to tell him the truth and as much time as I spent spilling myself on to the floor I went back to pretending like I always do.
I don't think he deserves to hear the entire story when he is a part of why it exists.
I will do what I do to keep this from dripping over.
Please, not again, I can't do this again.
Soon the night faded and I was alone.
The lights were off, the sun had set and I am still scared.
I am haunted by the thought that I am asking for this abuse by not wearing long sleeves to bed.
I am scared I will choke on my vomit before I am on the other side.
Please, not again, I can't do this again.

No longer human
When attempting to capture it all, where do I begin?
Something that really crushes me is reliving the abuse and watching myself get better at playing dead, to watch yourself become no longer human.
I did not go down without a fight, but it seems I didn't stand a chance.
I never did.
Those first few nights I am unsure how the house didn't wake up.
But that begging never worked, did it?
In a moment I will hopefully never remember I realized that this was the way it was.
This is just what happened some nights.
I could not outrun him, there was nowhere to hide.
It wasn't that I took the abuse, I just knew my options were to pretend it wasn't happening or suffer in a way nobody saw.
I learned how to be a quiet victim.
I remember the abuse vividly yet through a fog.
I watch myself not from my eyes but from someone feet away.
When I remember I see him walk in, I watch as for a moment I am no longer human and I become as close to a ghost as I could be.
I heard his footsteps and I was soon his rag doll.
He knew I was awake, I knew I was awake, he just didn't care.
That night the pain pulled me out of my coma.
I held back those tears with everything I could possibly muster.
They rolled down my cheeks.
Remembering this night is a blur until he was on his way back to the perfect son.
"Tell anyone and I'll fuckikg kill you."
I have never felt such fear as I did that night.
I watched myself cry and fall apart.
It's hard to tell my story without the words most would use.
I don't think I ever said it how people expected me to.
I walked around what happened and I spoke of what broke me.
But I could never say it.
To admit that he raped me is too admit that I was no longer human.
To say it was incest feels like saying that I am forever dirty.
But I am tired of watching the truth from a distance.
My brother raped me in my own bed when I was eight years old.
I was not born dirty but I will never be clean again.
These memories do not exist without ties to the life I live today.
I was a quiet victim and I am still trying to tell myself it's okay not to be.
If I do not go to bed wearing something to cover me all up then it will happen again.
That scared child still lurks behind corners because he was too scared to worry about growing up.
I have spent much of my life hiding this behind bottles and whatever else worked.
I always feel like I'm asking for it even when I remember that I begged him not to.
I am not entirely sure I am anything but no longer human.
The list of ways this has played out to leave me aching is impossible to capture in entirety.
I feel as if I am running from these memories.
Yet it always seems to catch up to me.
I am haunted, truly and genuinely I live in terror because of what once was.
I do not have skeletons in my closet. I have a ghost for a shadow.
When recalling these events I do not remember, I relive.
I do not remember being abused. I live in those moments.
I am often stuck in between the past and the present.
Reminding myself that the worst is over.
But when I wake up and I am back in the nightmare I wonder if I will ever be untainted by these moments in time.
I was a bright light as a child, there was a shining sun in my heart.
It seems that light is no longer what it once was.
With no room to grow there was no longer that option.
I often wonder if I will ever feel that radiant glow again.
I often wonder if I am forever tainted.
The nights in between were part of the horrors.
I watch myself sit at the edge of my bed and wonder if he will hurt me tonight.
I didn't close my eyes before going to sleep, I would lay with them open until the moment I was dreaming.
There was truly nothing to do but wonder if tonight you were alone.
I wish I could like a boy without wondering.
Wondering if he'd touch me if given the chance.
Wondering if someone sees my excitement and thinks I wanted him to.
I worry that I will not be strong enough to make it out.
In every survivor of sexual violence I have met it seems that when you were taken advantage of, part of you wonders if it was your fault.
I have not met an individual like me without that narrative.
Nobody asks for it.
It was not your fault.
I promise you that.
I don't care where you were or what you were wearing or who you were with.
I don't care what drugs you took or what made them think it was okay.
It wasn't.
Nobody asks for it, not a single one of us.
I feel like that little boy never got to grow up.
He didn't have time to wonder about his favorite color or what he wanted to be when he grew up.
I needed to survive, and when your life's in danger you will not go buy yourself some roses.
He never got a real childhood.
He had to pretend to be a happy kid, but he never was.
He's still there, he wasn't able to grow up, so he didn't.
He exists within the back of my mind and wonders when it will be safe to play.
As much as I try to pretend like I have grown but that little boy has not been able to.
Yesterday someone covered my mouth with their hands and soon that little boy was begging, please, not again, I can't do this again.
If only I could tell him that it was nothing more than a harmless gesture in intention.
So here it is all in the messy ways of the no longer human.

A letter to little Elliot
There's books of what I want to say to you, there is so much I wish you could hear.
If I could go back in time with messages from the future I would tell you that he will not always be able to hurt you.
What he does to you is awful, and it will end, he won't come to your room like he did.
He won't be at that house at all.
You will survive this.
But most of all,
Elliot it is not your fault.
You did not ask for this.
I know you tried so hard to stop him and at some point you knew you could not run so you did what you had to do to survive.
You are not wrong.
You are not dirty.
This was never your fault and it never will be.