Childhood Memories
Do you see me? I can feel your eyes; They always following me.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who I am.
Dissociation.
Now I look at myself without recognizing anything—what sad eyes I had… What was I hiding behind that smile? When you only see a vapid, kind mask, all I see is fear, this fear I’ve always held in my heart. I couldn’t be because I was dreading what you would do to me; I couldn’t dream because I was too busy trying to survive you, being pulled out of myself every day; I couldn’t live because I was worried you would open my bedroom door and get me. Nothing but this constant fear eating away at my soul.
And these sinking thoughts following me everywhere I went;
“When will I get caught?
And laughed at?
And shamed?
And rejected?
And hit and hurt?”
God, I remember how hard it was—it’s still so hard, even years after. All these memories inside of me… And most of them are rotten. Lived inside but trapped: vividly hollow.
This is a memory that’s been coming back lately, a very old one: alone in the backyard, looking up at the sky, finally inside of me and able to be free in my mind. Away and safe from your eyes. But then you get me, pull me out again—so much I could only see myself from afar. You shove me into the house, take what I like and hurt me a lot. I don’t understand. I just hurt and I’m scared.
What did I do wrong? Why am I always wrong? Why am I like this?
Then you put me on the bed and tell me to stop crying and lying. You tell me to tell you the truth. Did I lie? I don’t even know anymore. I’m outside not inside. Then, you and him take me out to eat. I am crying so much I can’t stop. You both laugh at me; you’re all so blurry, I can’t see your faces. It’s raining and grey outside. There are red shoe stickers on the window—just raindrops falling through red shoes. I can’t eat the burger you got me because I don’t like onions. He tells you he wishes he could take the red shoe and kick my ass with it. You both laugh again. I keep staring at the raindrops through the red shoes, at my heart bleeding and no one making it better.
And this is what you left me with.
This story is part of a collection of poems, short stories and introspective diary entries, called “Grimoire of a Weirdo”.