Masks and Charades of Life

With my ability to fool everyone during every single day, I’m surprised I didn't pass my Drama exam at GCSE.

I have so many masks and disguises to hide my behind; I don’t even know who I actually am anymore.

One of my masks is to pretend that everything’s okay in my life, to keep everyone thinking that I’m still slightly innocent and child-like and cute. I have another mask to hide the hurt of the biting remarks that always come my way, I seem to be the sort of person that everyone hates and this mask brushes off the insults and laughs them away. A third mask laughs at everything, keeping up the charade of optimism that I’m known for while a forth stops the tears from shedding as it defends me with witty remarks.

Because I use them as a wall to protect myself, my father thinks I’m attacking him with words like he does to me.

Everything is not okay, how can I build myself up when he’s pulling me back down? “What makes you think you can do that?” and “I've seen better” and “Oh, so-and-so did this”. Laughing whenever I come up with something is not the support I need.

I’m left-handed and the word ‘left’ derives from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘lyft’ which means weak. And the English word ‘sinister’ comes from the Latin word ‘sinistra’ which means ‘left’. I know I hoard strange things like this in my head, I hide behind knowledge and reasoning - it's why I took Philosophy at A-Level.

I don’t feel emotions, I may laugh or cry and get angry, but they’re faked. I feel nothing in my father’s company. I put the feeling of sadness on when I heard a friend had cancer. I pretended to be upset when I didn't know it was someone’s birthday.

I hate my father. He eats like a pig, scoffing all the food on his plate like there’s no tomorrow – he wouldn't be out of place in a Roman household. He laughs at people’s failures and doesn't help me when I need it. I have the bedroom next to the bathroom, I hear him clearly as he “drops a log” and sighs in content as he does so every morning. He puts the volume up way too loud and blames me every time he does a burp or passes wind. He’s disgusting. I hate him.

He thinks I won’t become a lawyer. He thinks I need help. He’s threatened to kick me out once I’m 18 on more than one occasion.

My mother says we’re similar in nature; I don’t want to be like him. I never want to be like him. I don’t want to threaten my children, to say they’ll get kicked out because they’re unemployed at 18, because there are no local jobs available, because I don’t show love the way other, proper, parents do.

So I guess I’ll apologise for the wrongs I've done my father in my life, as I’m about to turn the dreaded 1-8:

I’m sorry I can’t find a job that doesn't involve using any wages being used to get to the job.

I’m sorry I think university is a good idea, that I could become a lawyer, that I may be smart enough to do it.

I’m sorry that what I have to say is not important enough, and my useless talk of what I've done and what I’m proud of and what I've learnt in college isn't good enough. You so obviously want to talk about why you’re in a bad mood all the time – because of your work friends, and getting your point across is more important than what I have to say.

I’m sorry that when I was younger you had to redden your hand when you spanked me, though I am glad you never gave in to your threat of using your belt. I’ve never forgotten the pain the backs of my thighs went through as you did it.

I’m sorry that your words sting my heart, that every time I put the scissor blade to my wrist to cut the hurt to feel alive I’m too weak to push hard enough to break the skin.

I’m sorry that when I scratch my wrists to do what the scissor blade can’t the blood won’t spill, that the scratch marks fade a few hours later.

I’m sorry that I was born, that I’m an inconvenience in your busy life with you having to pay for my glasses frames when my eye sight gets worse and the bus pass the government won’t pay for, and that we don’t have enough money because I’m ‘too lazy to get a job’ I like, and you don’t earn enough and mum doesn't earn enough, and we’re nearly in debt because you have to support the four of us (me and you and mum and my sister).

I’m sorry that I’m ‘despondent’, it’s because of you. You’re your father; always going on about what someone else’s child has done that’s so much better than what I can do.

I’m sorry I’m not good enough for you.