Abuse

Sticks and Stones

 It all started when I was young, Third grade to be exact. My life started getting bad, and I didn't know why it was happening, I guess I was too young to know how cruel the world really was but, I was going to learn really soon. As a child a was extremely clumsy, bruises and broken bones weren't anything new to me, it made it really easy to explain the bruises he gave me to my teachers. I would just say that I fell off the swing set playing in my back yard or that I tripped running up the stairs, and for some reason they would believe me.

 I wish I had known then that it wasn't okay for him to hit me, or I would've said something to somebody who could help but, he hit my mom too, and she didn't stop him either. Don't get me wrong, she would try to get him to stop hitting me, and then he would turn around and smack her across the mouth. "Shut up bitch, I'll fucking hit who I wanna hit". At this point my mother would just turn away, pour some wine, light a smoke, and put me to bed. Even a room away I swear I could still smell the alcohol on his breath.

About Sixth grade they did an investigation on my household, I came to school with a black eye and my English teacher called home. Maybe if I wasn't so clumsy as a kid they could've taken me away from him, or taken him away from me, because he told the cops how clumsy I was. "She got in a fight with the cabinet door, unfortunately the door won". They believed him. Later that night he took a belt to me for telling what happened, even though I didn't.

I thought for years that it was my fault, maybe if I did all of my chores right when he asked he wouldn't get stressed and need a beer, then another, and another, and another. If I kept my grades up He wouldn't hit me, and if I cleaned up his beer bottles he wouldn't throw empty ones at my head when I walked through the living room. None of it could save me from what he would do.

I remember waking up in the hospital one day. I don't even remember what happened. "She fell down the stairs and hit her head". I didn't know who this man was but, when we went back home he beat me for losing my memory. The amnesia only lasted for a month, when everything came back to me it felt like I was having a nightmare while wide awake. I stayed with my grandmother's for that month. 

Crying myself to sleep is a regular thing, so is cutting in the shower. I have to have someway to feel something but, I just feel empty. I don't remember happiness, or what my face looks like when its not black and blue. I used to feel pain but now, there is nothing for me to feel. I just want out. So here I am, on the edge of the tallest bridge in this town. I'm sorry.