Everything's Not Okay

You're Useless

I stare at the bare ceiling expect for the random splotches of mold growing which is probably due to some kind of water damage which is just something else that needs to get fixed, some other bill. I feel like I'm suffocating from the overwhelming anxiety, it feels different than usual. I am no longer swimming in thick waters, I'm now just drowning when I know I can swim. 

Everything else has become a second priority, maybe even less. I let myself finally breathe in for a second and out for another. It shouldn't feel like a mundane task. It's breathing, something that's essential to me living yet I never knew how tiring it could be. How hard it was to take a breath and let it out. 

I look to my left and see that the side of the bed is empty. I try to smile but I know it doesn't show. I never felt this way about being alone before. I have never felt so happy with being alone, letting my thoughts swim around while I do nothing to stop them. It's not like I have medicine to take to get rid of them. I don't need them anyways. I'm just tired. I didn't get any sleep. How could I? His arms were wrapped around me while he slept, his bare skin pressed against mine. I shudder at the thought of it. 

Him whispering sweet nothings into my ear as if he didn't just emotional traumatize three kids and almost kill two only a few hours ago. His demeanor is always changing when he doesn't hear me respond to them. Instead he starts to berate me, telling me my flaws, my insecurities, the similarities in my mother and I, pulling my hair, slapping me, it doesn't matter how he does it, it always feels terrible. It only gets better when he gets himself back into the mood again. That's the only time where he doesn't speak to me, at least not for this night. He just lets the sounds of his grunts and the contact of skin slapping each other fill the room instead. I didn't make any noises, I'm not even sure if I was 100% there. I remember staring at the ceiling, waiting patiently. Waiting for him to grow tired. Waiting for him to give up. Waiting for the morning. Waiting for all of this to stop. But it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. Not until hours later at least.

I know he saw me staring at him while he prepared to leave. I know he knows that I know. But he didn't look at me once. He never looks at me in the eye after. He got up this morning only after sleeping a few hours away. He left the bed as if he was drunk, swaying and sluggish movements, but I know that he's sober. Almost as if he hasn't drunken a single thing in hours. I would know.  If he was drunk I would be able to smell it. No matter how much his room may reek of his foul scent, or the nauseating smell of rotten food, garbage, and drugs he left discarded on the floor, I can still tell the difference between the two. I guess that's the sad part about it all. He didn't say anything the whole time. Not even a remark of how I was watching him get dressed. He barely even gave me a glance to begin with. All he did was throw on his pants before going to his clothing dresser and pulling out a stack of money. Did I know? I did. Of course I knew. How could I not? He has enough money to pay the bills, he has enough to take care of the kids' financial needs, buy them food and clothing, maybe even decent water for the house. Yet he doesn't spend a single dollar on us, no. No, he spends it in clubs, bars, illegal drug deals. Sometimes it makes me think that maybe the guilt is getting to him, having the knowledge of what he does to children. So occasionally he would bring home a woman, maybe she's half his age, maybe my age, maybe less. He makes sure we're out the house whenever he does bring them home, so I can't verify what age. It's funny because no matter how much he might do to me, how much he might say, he would never bring home a man. Is it me? Does he hate me that much that I'm the only one to suffer? How is that fair? It doesn't matter anyways. He slammed the door on his way out.

I don't leave the bed until an hour later when I know for sure that he's gone.

When I do decide to finally sit up, it's not because I need to leave the bed. No, it's because I can feel as though something is crawling all over my skin and with this bed in this room there just might be. But it's different, everything aches now. It hurts again. I wince as I throw my legs over the bed's covers and stand up. I feel lightheaded and dizzy when I do. I want to drop to the floor from the sudden weight added to my legs, but I don't. I'm used to this. I look at the nightstand to see that he left me a note with some bathroom necessitates next to it. I can't say that I remember seeing him put this here.