I don’t understand what makes somebody think in such damaged proportions to the point where an outcry of violence is all that is left. I can’t help but think about the times that my high school boyfriend grabbed his 3 year old sister by the neck and threw her into the drywall. Her cries were not only of fear but of pain. Moments before that sat in my lap laughing as he talked to his mom.  But the green eyed monster took a hold of him and made him morph into somebody that made my blood run cold. It wasn’t enough that I promised him that I would never talk to her again; which is odd to think of a 13 year old to say about her boyfriend’s 3 year old sister. I even have nightmares about eating around the dinner table where I wasn’t even allowed to look up never mind talk. Making sure none of the bruises could be seen from under my sleeves or pant legs. I was made to live here in this torture which I had long believed that I had deserved.

Throughout this experience I was befriended by a girl. She wanted desperately to connect with somebody and she had chosen me to fit this void. I appreciated having somebody that wasn’t a male and not just after what it is they thought was in my pants. I had a girlfriend to smoke cigarettes with as we lost ourselves in Nine In Nails, The Doors and anything else that could have awoken the devil back then. There was not much drinking in between the diet coke’s and endless amount of butter on english muffins that was fast becoming our everyday staple. Her parents loved me or so I thought. I was only around so she could get back at her ex boyfriend. Apparently he was my new boyfriend so all she cared about was destroying me from the inside.

I can’t tell you exactly what happens to a teenage girl’s mind when she is betrayed by so many people that she has kept around her. I pushed away all those that only wanted to see the best in my and kept those around who were waiting till I fell so they could burry me a alive. Trauma has  way of reacting like quick sand once it is exposed. When you lose your boyfriend, best friend and state of mind all before you take your next breath don’t be surprised when the black cancer begins to form threatening your last thread of sanity at best.  As a child I was hurting and there was nothing that could be done to make it any better. When you are young it is like being on a roller coaster that you don’t want to be on. You are scared of heights and the rapid moving turns as your stomach upside and operating on empty as the stars begins to form around your head. All you want to do is get off but if you do they are all there waiting for you. Pointing their fingers, laughing. How come in the room full of people it is always me standing alone.

I understand the fortress that I have built I don’t allow many access into it. Every time I begin to trust I am reminded just why you shouldn’t anyways I am desperate to love, to be loved and to smile from a place of authenticity. Instead I am destined to be hated, I fear I will never feel love again. My tears no longer wash away my pain and shame and I gravitate towards the only being in my immediate vicinity who has absolutely no way of communicating his love with me at all. My anxiety is running rampant on a course set to overdrive. I like to think of myself as a high functioning manic depressive. You only know that I suffer because I chose to share.  I can cry and laugh without missing a beat. Not because the moment is so tranquil and bittersweet but because the hurt  I have come to know over the last 3 decades is the same. It is both haunting and familiar that without it existing inside me I don’t know who I truly ever will be.

Did you ever wish so hard against the night sky that you just hope for a different life. I guess I am an asshole for saying so but these days where we finally see the true colours behind these individuals who have been hiding for so long actually brings me peace. My peace comes in knowing that life is meant to hurt for each and every one of us in some degree or another.  My fear comes in seeing the level of pain that some feel that they are entitled to hand down. I was in a live news feed reading the comments of average American’s who believed that their existence meant more than those fighting in the streets. That it is ok for their respected line of blue to take any means necessary upon their citizens of colour because if you dig back deep enough you will find a DUI charge from 1962 that just confirms that the victim of violence was a criminal. This is our reality. We are so content in being assholes just because instead of making living easier for us all. All lives matter but we get to define who’s life actually does. In this chat room average American’s were content with the annihilation of a race because it doesn’t fit their purpose. It’s even more sickening to read the mantra, “well if you work hard enough…***pull up pants, spit out tobacco and get your hand on that holster.”

My heart pounds even faster and my head begins to swirl. I close my eyes and try to imagine what this country looked like before the boats began to hit the shore. I see our glorious Indigenous people welcoming us with their open arms eager to teach us their customs if we taught them ours. It is hard to see anything with dollar signs in your eyes and a cargo full of slaves to unload.  So that comment about hard work, please hold my barf bag. There was no blood, sweat or tears lost by any white man who came to build up this land. That argument of hard work means so much more than bagging at McDonald’s or pumping my gas at the Speedway. Talk to me about turning fields and building houses and all the other demeaning chores that were thrown their way before you talk about your glorious minimum wage job that built this country.

All I have ever known was the thread of the evil intention. It seems we all want to be that person responsible for destroying another. It doesn’t matter what the story is on the other side because if the Nazi’s has taught us anything books are meant for burning.  There will always be some tyrant hell bent on trying to destroy us. The us being the hearts with good intentions that still try to beat pure  even thought the rest of the world is beating against us.  Life is no longer for the living because right now it is a matter of existing. Freedom can’t be achieved until there is a realization of both.