Up

Up-the begining

 All I can say abut the people in my childhood is that they were always up. Way above the roof of my one story house, above the clouds and the birds. Up, up, up, and always smelling of smoke. They were almost always men that came around to see my mother. Which this always made my parents argue. By the time I was five my parents were sleeping in different beds. I didn't understand this then, because mommies and daddies always slept together- right? When I'd asked my father he only said "There's no more room for me." I didn't understand that either because they had a queen sized bed and my mother was just a size two. A week later I'd asked my dad what a tweaker was after hearing the neighbor say that about my mom. He didn't let me go outside after that, except when he took me out of town to work with him. We'd play together in the grasses and meadows that stretched farther than my adolescent mind could fathom. We played until the stars came out. He'd teach me the constellations and how they'll always be gods map home.

When I turned six my dad hardly ever let me stay home. He said that "mommy is working," or "mommy is sick" or just "mommy can't watch you,". I was okay with it, though, because he always bought me new toys and dresses even though he never gave my mother any money. When I finally started kindergarten I was a little older than my classmates.

When I turned seven daddy wouldn't come home for hours and he hardly took me with him. He'd tell me to stay in my room and he'd leave me snacks. I'd spend hours looking at my four pale pink walls, sitting on my twin bed. I'd watch how the paint in the corners could chip and peel, reveling concrete. My room was almost bare from the times my mother would surface to find something to sell. "I'll buy a new one." she'd promise but never followed up. I'd hear people come in and out of the house through our heavy black front door. Sometimes yelling about money, and sometimes going to my moms room that was across the hall from mine. The hall creaked with each step from floorboards that hadn't been replaced in god knows when. I'd ask my dad why he'd leave and all he'd say was that he was talking to special people about us going on a special trip, without my mother. Then he never came home. All he left behind was the memory of his short brown hair, his tall frame, and muscled body that I loved to use as a jungle gym when he hoisted me above his shoulders so i could 'fly'. I'd go into his room and it'd still smell like his cologne, so I started sleeping in there. I always heard mom crying.

When I turned nine I started my period and stained my pink pants. I went crying to my mom, scared. She slapped me and called me a bitch for ruining good clothes. A week later I heard my mom screaming and ran to her room. I saw a man on top of her and I started crying thinking he was hurting her. So in return, she hurt me everywhere that night. She covered me in bruises and told me to keep hidden. She said I was just a burden like my daddy. I asked my teacher what that meant. I cried.

A few days later I came home from school and he was there, with an unkempt beard and greasy hair.  I remember most of what he smelt like, the over powering wall that struck me down, he smelt of booze as well as urine. My mom told me that now that I began transition into womanhood, that it now was the time to show me what being a women meant. She'd said it proud. The man asked my name and I told him Samantha. I thought of my dad that night. When the man lie in my bed touching me in places that burned like acid. Made me kiss him in places that made me feel like I was drowning. I cried the whole night, my mom looked at me with disgust and told me I should be thankful, most girls have to work for it. Then she stopped being mom and became Nicole.

It happened each night after that, sometimes more than once. Always different men, they'd hand Nicole money afterwards, and she'd give me a twenty. When I hit middle school I understood but never spoke the words. Because when I hit sixth grade Nicole had another baby girl, and she was my life. I raised little Maria, I taught her how to walk and talk. She was born with a cleft lip and feeding her was hard, but she was my responsibility. So I fed her, and bathed her, and loved her. She was my own. And by the time I was seventeen and a Junior in high school, I was her everything.

It got tougher then, I had all AP classes and a part-time job. Marie had to sit there and do homework while I worked. I'd help her with her spelling when I was on break, and my boss gave us free food since I had to pay bills. I'd take her home then it would be shower time and then bed time. I'd read her a chapter of Harry Potter each night, and once she fell asleep I stared at her. I promised myself I'd take her away before she had adopted my fate. I'd save her.

I wouldn't start my studies until midnight each night. I'd finish by three, then I cleaned due to insomnia and nostalgia that filled my bones like cancer. Sleep was not attainable. I cleaned until there was nothing left to clean, and then I made Marie breakfast and lied out her clothes. I'd be late to school taking her to class, but I always got straight As. We depended on that.