Already gone

part 2

I sat in the crowded repertory and with all the people around me, I still felt lonely. Across the table from where I sat alone, my classmates were playing cards. As I watched them closely, my only wish was that they call me over to play with them, I wanted them to ask me how I was doing, I wanted them to hug me and tell me that they knew that I wasn’t okay even if I told them I was. I wanted them to ask me to do group work with them , I wanted them to choose me to play on their team during sports, I wanted them to smile at me when I arrived at school, I wanted to be missed whenever I was absent, I wanted to feel wanted  but I never existed so.....
A part of me wasn’t that angry about them not wanting or missing me or listening to me or talking to me and I guess it was because deep down, I wanted to be alone…... I don’t know. Maybe.
Telling my family wasn’t an easy thing because I was emotionally lonely, like, no one in my family could relate to me emotionally and I’m also from a broken family, a family that had been broken for years and had no hope of being mended. A brutal, alcoholic father, a battered wife, a depressed and lost daughter(me).
I dreaded going home so I’d usually sit an hour or two at school after school because I didn’t want to go home to my broken family, I didn’t want to go to a house full of resentment, I didn’t want to go to a house full of violence and bad childhood memories. I didn’t want to enter the living room where I saw my drunk father beat my pregnant mother until the child, she had been carrying for nine months died. I saw everything. I saw her bleed until the living room was an ocean of blood. I saw her beg for mercy, but he still wouldn’t stop. Her cries are still in my head. Her baby cries. Her blood. Those steep stairs where she fell at a push of his hands. The leather belt he used to thrash her. Until my death, I still saw them. I was still haunted by them. I heard dad clumped up the stairs. I thrust my earpiece into my small ears so that I don’t hear anything, but the sounds of my father's blows and my mother's cries still outran the loud sound of the music.
Since my sister gave up the ghost, a part of my mother went with her. she was no more that strong woman that tried in her weak way to be lively. she sat in her deck chair from dawn till dusk, mourning, until I became invisible to her too.
She stopped sleeping in the same room as my father. She stopped talking to him. She stopped riding the same car as him. There was never a moment a that she looked at him that I didn’t hear her heartbeat with rage. There was never a moment that I didn’t see her clench her teeth in anger when she heard his voice.
Once, I took her to the park to get her out of hate's bowels, to get her to breathe in new air. We sat on one of the park's benches and I started talking to her about school but when I turned to her, she wasn’t listening. Instead, she spent the whole looking at a toddler on the swing.
“This could’ve been my baby", I know that was what she was thinking.
“Can’t wait for summer so that we can go to the beach and tan.” I said grinning but her attention was on another toddler playing in pebbles.
Taking her to the park was a bad idea.
        
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She sat in her deck chair again, knitting a baby's scarf. I pulled the black Ottoman near her, sat, and spoke; “there's exposition at my school, would you like to come?”
No response.
“Ma?”
Still no response.
Not fully cognizant of my presence, the woman continued knitting her dead baby's scarf.
I stormed into my room, closed the door vehemently and began to weep. I don’t know why I wept but I know that each tear was like a dagger that pierced deep into my fragile heart.

                                            *                *                 *
Each day pulled my parents far away from each other. Each day nurtured the hatred that my mother had had for my father and each day broke me. Each day, I wanted things to be as they should.  Each day, I wanted to see my parents happy. Each day, I wanted them to look each other in the eyes and not act like they’ve seen a stranger. Each day, I wanted to bring them back together, but I didn’t know how, and I was weary. Each day, I wanted to make my mother happy, but I couldn’t get her to notice or talk to me. All these desires widen the hole that was in my heart. 
They had no idea that they had a child in the house that was tired of the hate, a child that was affected by what they were doing to each other, a child that was going slowly, a child whose suffering couldn’t be understood nor properly explained and I’m not blaming them for my death. I blame no one.
I used to be a dreamer, an excessively big one. I aspired of becoming a famous singer but all I did was lie in bed and dived deep into reverie.  I wanted to leave my bed to go out there and show the world my talent but, I was so subdued by my “heavy emptiness”. Sometimes I’d sit by my window and watch people get on with their lives, I saw them chase their dreams and I wanted to be like them but emptiness wouldn’t let me go so I just gave in and got lost in the musical lines since music was the only place I found my refuge.
I leaned over, took a pillow, fluffed it, and got ready for bed. I closed my eyes to sleep but my thoughts wouldn’t let me. The walls they build around me this time was strong that I couldn’t break free. Then, reverie came knocking and I let him in since I couldn’t fight anymore.
“stupid, stupid, stupid!!” I hit my head with the back of my head as I cried. I was tired of daydreaming of becoming the singer I was never going to be, but I just couldn’t help it. I wasn’t good enough to be that singer I’ve always wanted to be. Not with my fat and pale skin. I was ugly I was shapeless. At least that was what the voices in my head told me.  I jump out of bed and began to pace the room. I needed to keep myself distracted so I sat by my windowsill and strummed few tunes on my guitar. I started to sing but suddenly, I started hearing echoes of my mother’s cries. I angrily threw the guitar across my room and headed for the kitchen to keep myself busy. I needed to do to something. something that would keep me away from my thoughts for like a second.  My hand hit the switch and the fluorescent bulb that descended from the ceiling revealed the red eyes of my mother was sitting in the dark all the while. She closed her eyes tight and buried her face in her palm since she was being dazzled by the light. I walked past her and began to empty all the dirty dishes in the sink. I threw the spoons on the caramel bowl and then I threw the cups in too. The clattering of the dishes suddenly turned to the sound of orchestra instruments and there I was, standing before thousands of pews that were occupied by people who seemed dazzled as I sang them into ecstasies.
“Anne, Anne, Anne!!!!” The crowd shouted my name as they applauded. “Anne, Anne!!”, my father’s voice pulled me out of reverie.  What’s wrong with me? I reached for the knife and it took a simple courage to do what I wanted to do with that knife, a simple courage that I never possessed. my father barged in the kitchen and then my mother followed too. she put few slices of bread in a plate, slathered it with peanut butter and pushed it towards my father who at the other end of the kitchen table. With the tip of his finger, she stopped the gliding plate. My mother walked past him, and I saw her let out a deep breath she had been holding due to the physical proximity of my father who reeked of alcohol.
   *          *          *
I sat at my windowsill and through the dusty pane, I looked idly at the gloomy sky. The leaves that had parted ways from the trees came swaying in the breeze and then the birds followed too. They displayed a little flying show before my eyes and quickly flew towards the heaven. I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be like the birds. I wanted to spread my wings. I wanted to soar. I wanted to fly. I wanted to breathe in the air of other countries. I was tired of this small and gloomy town and its gloomy air.
I could. I could fly. I could become that famous singer I’ve always wanted to be. I could break free from this frigid prison. I could fight my way out of this rut even if no one were reaching out a hand to help pull me out. I could do it. I could it alone. I could make the world hear my songs. My depressing and gloomy songs. But hey, I couldn’t move. I was tired. I had to strength. Damn EMPTINESS
*         *         *
I grew tired of my sad, dark and lonely house so I went for a walk. As I walked the streets, I took a stop to notice all the gloomy building. I noticed them because I knew how not being noticed felt like. Me posting suicide memes on my Facebook page, that was my way of calling for help. Me crying in my school bathroom until my eyes got red just so people could ask me how I was my other way of calling for help  but people never noticed me or even asked how I was, so, believe me when I say I know how it feels like not being noticed. I stood on the sidewalk and lean on the light pole as I watched a family enter a bakery. I was somewhat fond of this family, so I sat on a bench that was facing the bakery. I saw the man's hand wrapped around his wife’s waist and I asked rhetorically; “why isn’t it my family? Why didn’t my father treat my mother this nice but instead beat on her as if she were an object? Why didn’t my father caress my cheeks like this man is doing his daughter? Will this ever be my family? Will I ever be happy?”
I looked into the empty space and the tears came rolling since my eyes couldn’t hold them anymore. People passed by me without even noticing that there was a girl sitting crying. That there was a girl that needed to be loved, a girl that needed to be hugged, a helpless girl that was watching herself go slowly but most of all, a girl who wanted the cut on her wrist to be noticed, a girl whose biggest regret was her existence.
As my tears came rolling, the thoughts of cutting my wrists came flowing like a rushing water. Then, sounds of my mother’s cries and my father’s insults and slaps came looking for its way through my head and openly, I welcomed them because I weirdly enjoyed the rage, they brought me. A rage that gave me the desire to cut my wrists since I thought hurting myself was the only way to let out this rage. My memory then took a trip back to my childhood and there, a frigid childhood full of violence and hate. As the wind, took away the breath that I exhaled, a strange feeling came and gorged me; I missed the happiness I had never known.
I was I tired. I was tired of everything, I was tired of the hate, I was tired of the violence, I was tired of the silence, I was tired of hearing my mother sobbing silently at night so that she couldn’t be heard, I was tired of eating with my family in silence, I was tired of dwelling in self-pity, I was tired of this gloomy town that was gloomy even on the summer days, I was tired of its little population, I was tired of people not caring, I was tired of knowing that no one would  care  if a died,  I was TIRED of everything.......

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I got home after 10 PM and no one noticed I had left. I was heading for my room when I passed the guest room and then took few paces back because I heard my mother sobbing again and it broke me even more.
I went into bed and begun to breath in the emptiness. I heard nothing, except the beating of my fragile heart. I lay there in silence and hoped they would someday recognise my presence. I hoped that I would one day stop being a ghost and that they would see me. I didn’t know this thing I was feeling but I knew it absorbed all the joy I could have had and left me with a void. I found myself full of hate was weary of carrying this hate around. I couldn’t be mended because I lacked resilience. I held on to time but it passed me so quick and so I asked myself; “why not end it all?”