Please look away

We announce our birth with a scream of cries, the only time that harsh sound brings joy to the mother. Our voice is the only power, most of us don’t have to earn. Our only tool for survival, with the only knowledge coming in hunger pains, dirty diapers, and plain discomfort. We knew to cry until we got what we needed. A simple thought; we know what is essential and we work to obtain it. 

So why is it that as we grow older and experience more, gain more knowledge, gain more power– that we begin to forget this one fact. This one piece of information that even a newborn baby is given to have a chance at surviving. The real question is: are we forgetting? Or are we choosing to? The world around us is a constant surge of crashing waters, never stable. The things we find that small comfort in can do harm, will do harm. But what’s left when life revolves around the unpleasant, with nothing that relieves the pain or worry. When the brain has nothing inside it but rotting, shriveled thoughts that envelop any slip of light. Is it worth it to live perfectly, healthily, if us as a whole will never be able to get to this level together?

I look back at my past, constantly questioning “why did I put myself through so much.” Why is it that my issues seem to stem from my hands, my mind, my lies? Those haunted days when I weighed the decision between known and unknown, safe and dangerous. 

The night I savored the heft of the kitchen knife in my hand, the cold jolt of the metal. 

The night I ordered the scale, lowered the intake below two hundred. 

The night I realized that if I put it in, I can take it out. 

The year I lost all control in my desperate attempt to get it. 

When I decided to make that first cut. To permanently stain my own flesh. My own body. To go against all human instinct, and bring harm to myself. It seemed like the only option, something I had to do. I didn’t know why, I still don’t. I only knew that this was something people do in pain, something to help escape the depths of it. I saw the tips and valleys of a mountainscape up my sister’s arm, the three purple lines that the girl in the back of the class would roll up her sleeve to clean. Images that accompanied the feel of the little felt maroon bag that had begun to expand as it was stuffed with tissue after tissue, cut after cut. 

I found peace in the action. The direct power I could see in my own fingers. To know that in some form I have control, and an impact on something, anything. That I’m not an empty being. 

The belief that seems to follow me through each flashback. My actions engraved into a behavior that favors everyone else before me. Trying to bring happiness to a house with two teenage girls, secretly filling my 7-year old frame with blame. The scrapbooks that used to carry four undoubtedly happy faces, now carry five of less enthusiasm. The only faces I knew, those strangers of the past were gone before I had a chance to meet them. They were anecdotes of success to deliver in reunions, to prove some substance of a life, enough to stop trying so hard. 

The little girl I was, who felt guilty if she forgot to pray for happiness for her mother, or got in trouble for sitting next to someone that talked out of turn and got blamed.  Learning to stay quiet until cued, to follow the directions and social guidelines of others, to fit in and create no waves that feel like a cold slap across the face. I made a promise to my father that “I won’t be mean like them when I’m a teen,” a belief I felt so strongly, a personal strength that got my hopes up. It was replied to in laughs and disbelief, a challenge for me to beat. The motivation to  stuff down any emotion that could disturb. The motivation to raise my voice in my second attempt at greeting my piano teacher even when I feared it would crack and delve into sobs, a common demand of her when my first entrance wasn’t up to par. The shame heated my cheeks as I stood alone behind the white door, practicing in my mind before performing three perfect knocks and facing the disappointed faces on the other side. The motivation to stay quiet, to stay the innocent little girl that couldn’t help laughing at all his jokes, that faced the black of her eyelids, facing her fear of the dark, when he took what he wanted and never said a word. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m now engineered to scream silently. My throat stings whenever tears threaten, words that have never escaped building up and beginning to overflow. Words that spill across my skin, words that I need to get out. 

My arms glisten, knuckles redden.

I feel the bone, it feels like home. 

I’ve grown up sustaining control, I can’t give it up now. Cant put trust into the chants that the scale will only sway, that it will be okay. To give up the life I’ve diverted to, the routine and ritual that I resort to by default. My automatic setting. The hunger cues I’ve trained to stay at bay, I can’t go back to a life I’ve personally purged out of my skin. The behaviors I’ve banned from my life. The skin I’ve taken in return. Give up the meals that I know will fit just right, to eat a surprise. It’s hard to accept being in the unknown when the said unknown is on the only level small enough to be known. In a world of never ending confusion, my little bubble needs to keep me safe. Don’t take this away too. The hairs are already down the drain, my skins already stained, their faces of shame already engraved. 

I don’t deserve to change. 

I don’t deserve to stay. 

I carry bags of pain–but I’m not one to litter.

Let me fade away and attempt to save the day while others turn their face away. 

Please look away.

I know how to numb the pain

I couldn’t be more different than the child I see in my memories. The girl in pigtails running into the sunny early morning, now taping blackout curtains in anticipation of the harsh awakening. The memories that play out in scenes above, a spectator in my own life. I wish I could take it all back. The weak moments, the forgiven mental attacks. 

One little bite a day still runs out eventually.

One joke about my chubby cheeks.

One tip at the fourth grade snack table on how to lose weight.

One night when you took too much of me. 

They chip away like string after too many attempts at beading it, the dry taste still in my mouth. One more memory to pretend is just a dream, just something that will one day be forgotten, something I can forget. 

Disconnect. Quiet it. Forget it.

Float above in a bubble of safety, a warm blanket to separate me from the real one that’s being slowly lifted off of my legs. 

A place to hide when the fingers I stayed awake waiting for, finally placed their fingers in their practiced route. 

One-step, two-step, move a bit. Restart. 

Until he got enough. Resisting the pressure on my eyelids, to let him take what he wanted before entering his own perfect sleep. I was always taught to put others first. Didn’t want to find coal in my stocking. 

Let them sleep.

While I retreat. 

Thoughts never spoken.

my soul’s already broken. 

What’s one more moment forgotten. 

Learn to be light as a feather

To even the pressure

Flat on my back

Don’t let the eyes track. 

never look back.

Praised for the thing I hated. Hours of practicing demanded. The dread when I saw my father, knowing what he expected. Bits of russian learned before ever taking even a math class. Engraved in each speck of spit as my teacher would have to reach into her backup dictionary, all the english insults used up. A bit contradicting when everyone else was stating that I could never quit, a god given talent; too bad she stole that with each word, yell, and criticism that she used to make me better. 

Humans are creatures of habit, one of the reasons I used to invalidate my own memory. Something that’s normal, it’s not a big deal. It’s not a surprise that I stick to my own. 

Needing a routine, a system tried and true. No room for error. 

Sure it can get mundane, but at least there’s less pain. 

Same alarms used.

Same calories burned.

Same pull from the long-sleeve drawer.

Scared of a delay that ruins my day.

they preach how its dangerous to stay this way–i dont know how to fucking change. 

Just let me bleed.

I don’t want to eat.

I just want to fade.

I’m trying to put others first.

I know how to numb the pain.

So just lay all yours on display and I’ll chip away. 

nothing really matters, as long as I’m helping others.

Maybe I took that wrong, too young to fully understand. But I can’t forget how to live, it’s the only way I’ve learned how.  It’s the only way I’ve stayed. So what if I’m stained. With thinning hair, and purple stripes. At least she’s still there, and I have the bits of happiness, my personal pixie dust that lets me float above. Sometimes I like horror movies, I guess. 

I wasn’t there during kindergarten recess when they made me scared of everyone’s favorite part of the day,

The red tube where they used me.

I wasn’t there when he overruled my logic every night and slept right next to me,

My best friend’s house, stained.

I wasn’t there at my weekly dreaded piano lessons, her tips were never used.

My switch turned off, when the music stopped, and her mouth opened. 

I wasn’t there, so why would I be here? 

I never learned to stick. 

I learned to survive.

Not to thrive.

The Night it all went to Shit

I didn’t understand why I was someone that had to have this fate. “Why did I do this to myself” was the most asked question of every. Single. Day. but I still can’t stop. The constant need for control. For a hold on the world around me. The need to have some say in what happens around me. I didn’t understand anything that had fallen upon me, I researched it, I found bits of information that made me understand more and more about myself and life, the mystery that will forever be unsolved. I saw a tik tok that mentioned how those with sexual assault in their past often get anorexia. That’s when it clicked.

The control that’s taken when you are violated in the heaviest way. The fear when you wake to creeping fingers in a pitch black room. The same room that’s shadows have been engraved in your memory. Where the lion and evil beings lurked, the silhouettes of drums and miscellaneous toys that were so eerily alike. The shadows that you now stared at, while real horror occurred. The permanent damage that those trimmed, clean-cut fingernails traced on your thighs. The thoughts and fears that would never leave, even after the memories themselves did. The forgotten worries that you implemented in my mind without me even realizing. 

The one time I remember. The night that I can’t seem to forget. When she insisted on us bringing down the entire two mattresses along with the comforters for our sleepover. When I somehow knew to beg for mine to be on the end only next to her. When he insisted that we keep it how it was. Me next to him. This was normal, I knew it would happen this way, it felt routine. But why do I only remember this night when I refused to let my eyes drop, refusing to weaken against the pressure. A fucking 7 year-old-girl trained to resist sleep because of him. The night when I traced the outlines of the basketballs, and boardgames against the living room window holding the smallest bits of moonlight. The shadows that I was once convinced were going to attack, now etched in repetition through my memory. The routine practiced past reason, a coping method for what was to come. What I knew would come. The needed distraction for when you expectedly began to gently peel back my comforter, your hand and all the pain traveling through MY bedding. Your cold fingers, testing the water, ensuring that the skin of the tiny girl you were touching wasnt resisting; that the girl was asleep, unconscious, and without a fucking choice. The night when it all went to shit. 

I can’t remember how many nights your fingers practiced that route across my skin, how many times I ignored the pressing urge to close my eyes and accept what could’ve been childlike dreams; fairies granting me any wish, being a princess with unlimited power, anything thats different than my fucking reality. The reality where I knew you wouldn’t let one night pass. One night where you could take advantage of your sister’s best friend, the girls who lived next door and spent hours with your adopted parents picking out the wall paint colors, the comforters that you bypassed to violate me. 

I can only remember that one night now.  All those memories of happy child sleepovers with my best friend are gone and now replaced with only one.

The one that’s been replayed too many times in therapy. The one that’s been played over in exhausting amounts of time, the details and feelings said but not viscerally remembered until now. When I waited for the touch of your coarse fingertips inching up my legs. The space that had never been touched, still too scared of any other fingers because of you. Because of the extended nights where dark shadows held fear heavier than any mythical being, the fear of your best friend’s brother encroaching on every aspect of privacy you held. The fear of being out of control within your own body. How are you supposed to confront that when the person you waited months for would hate you for it. Would hate you for the truth. For ruining her relationship with the brother she calls the “GOAT,” for being the one to take away her one true person. 

The fingers of an older child, also too young for this type of touch. Brushstrokes across my inner thighs, painted blues and purples stained in my flesh. Reignitied in vividity with each new skin that travels the same path. 

That night. When you decided it was okay to pretend what you did was okay. Just because I “couldn’t” feel it. Because I was fucking asleep. But I wasn’t, at least not that time. My body was ready to shift, to warn you off but not admit I knew what you did. Too ashamed of what was happening against my will. Too scared to create a real issue by saying anything; instead I learned to float. My memories are forgotten as I trained myself to disconnect, to become a different form than physical. A 7-year-old who knows how to pretend she isn’t herself, who’s still stuck unable to feel whole. 

Even in the present, when that night feels so distant that it shouldn’t matter, your paint is still there in certain lighting. In the need to know everything consumed, to control what goes into my body so thoroughly because I couldn’t then. The control you took now replaced with an exhausting mess of control over myself that I can’t escape. 1200, 1000, 800, 600, 400, none of it wass enough, I wasn’t able to feel content or in enough control until I hit fucking 200. The rule that still follows me when I take an unexpected bite. The worry that courses through me each time I eat something that’s higher than 200 calories by itself, something that once seemed impossible. 

A Headstone for Scars

They say two negatives makes a positive

So why is it questioned when it’s true

It’s prodded and called flawed

An attempt at fame when it’s 

Really just trying to run from the pain 

The intention behind the incision

The focus on the glisten

Mind Overflow- let the blood go

Power in the control

Think outside the box

Just below your socks

Then it’s down your arms

Up your thighs

Behind your eyes.

It shouldn’t be a surprise

To feel a sting

When you still hear their words ring

The need to see rather than be

The power in me is clearer 

The retrieve when I grieve 

Please don’t leave as I heave 

I want to breathe how they breathe–

With ease. 

Cold marble engraved with initials

Death date decades gone

A film of plaque covering its skin

A tooth decaying with age

Cavities taking up space

memories of only a blank face

A headstone stuck in place.

Side eyes,  sticky thighs

Both visual and physicalScars inside need a headstone too.

An apology to my mom

My aunt likes to dye her hair a dark cherry red. I don’t remember her much before her hair had the reminiscent glow of the sour cherry balls my dad would place on the keys of the piano as I practiced, the vague clicking that grew with each vibration of a chord motivating me as the amount of sugary red sweetness ahead increased in both volume and quantity. She likes to layer her clothes, an exhausting mess of zippers and buttons to undo every night, prepared for a winter storm in August. She keeps a collection of shiny confetti scraps in any shape imaginable, all sprinkled like a pinch of pixie dust in each envelope she seals; I wonder if she ever heard talk that even licking an envelope seal has calories, that the sticky glue whose burnt taste stains your tongue is now an option in the calorie tracking apps she didn’t have as a teenager. My aunt, the woman whose presence I’ve grown to dread, the woman whose need for control makes her company draining, the woman who I now see reflected in my mother’s eyes when they lie on mine.

The familiar tune of my dad’s fingers orchestrating Rachmaninoff reverberated through the messy kitchen as my sister and I packed our lunches for school, opening and closing each cabinet in hopes of spotting a spare pack of fruit snacks or chips hiding within them—something other than the apple slices and jelly sandwiches that usually sat, soggy, on the other side of the rusted zipper. Our mother listing off ideas as she tidied the kitchen, all requiring more time than we were willing to spend.

“I’m just going to pack a snack and eat when I get back from school,” my sister decided—as she did every day, tossing a granola bar in her black JanSport backpack that was sagging against the wall. 

“Don’t make a habit of skipping meals. I used to have to leave school daily during lunch to make sure my sister, your aunt, wasn’t at home throwing up her lunch,” my mother admitted, something that I was surprised to hear her mention casually, a topic we avoided, a habit to pretend we didn’t notice when she would take one small bite and “save the rest for later.” The lies we accepted repeatedly, her voice convincing, “I don’t like fried foods,” “Dairy makes me sick,” or “I only like my own baking.” Lies that, eventually, I think even she believed, still believes. 

“Promise me you’ll never start with all that food stuff—it’s awful.” My mom pleaded as she said this, her pale brows forming a slight hill as they lifted faintly in pure sincerity. I promised honestly that I never would. 

I had no worry that I would ever break the promise to my mom. I felt that there was no chance in the world I would ever be able to give up the meals my mom cooked, the smells filling our home, foreshadowing the delicious dinner I knew would be coming, or the personalized cakes she would make on everyone’s birthday according to what they loved that year. The taste of thick chocolate pudding draining slowly from the cleaned-out dump truck and now matching on all of our faces as we uncovered sour gummy worms and Oreo crumbles, all for the daycare kid that was turning four. In fact, I never understood how people developed those thoughts, how they could say, “No, thank you,” when offered a chocolate chip cookie, or turn down the opportunity to hang out with all their friends just because a dinner reservation had been made. 

I didn’t feel those thoughts were possible for me personally; that is, until it was much too late; they seemed to have magically appeared, stuck in habit, still there. I didn’t realize until the mindset and the rules were already stealing the good away, until they had been creeping in for years. Until one day, familiar faces looked at me as if I was stuck, hovering two inches above cold pavement after dropping from a ten-floor building. I didn’t mean to melt into the mattress in my dark room during family dinners, the exhaustion and thought of eating all too heavy to carry down one flight of stairs. I didn’t feel the pain until I could no longer find the throbbing ache that had become as familiar and exhausting as the sliver of light that somehow always sneaks in. I didn’t trust the scale that flashed dangerously low numbers each day because the mirror didn’t match. I didn’t find it strange that I couldn’t remember how it felt to be warm, didn’t believe I was small even when it became a chore to hold my pants up as I walked; I didn’t worry about the “irreversible side effects” when each pull of the plastic hairbrush through my tangled copper hair wrapped more and more hair around its handle, the whisper of my childhood braids resounding in my brain, my mother praising “the thick hair you’ll be grateful to have later in life.” The hair that she had to watch diminish, the hair that tangles itself around anything it can reach, as if trying to escape the body and mind that destroyed it. They always did say to leave behind what isn’t benefiting you in life. I can’t blame my hair for trying, for succeeding; I’m glad my heart never did seem to learn that lesson. 

I prided myself on my independence, never wanting to see the look of betrayal painted across the same face that I promised I never would. Telling myself that I could hide it, the pain, the food, and the fear. I didn’t think you knew that anyone knew, but eventually the “how are you’s” started sounding too sincere, and the echoing “take care of yourself” came from faces pinched with concern. I wish instead of hopelessly trying to protect you, I let you protect me. 

So, to my mom, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’ve been stuck dealing with the same worries since adolescence. I’m sorry I spent Mother’s Day mentally calculating everything twice and still ending it staring at my reflection in the water filling the white porcelain toilet at dinner, not in your arms. I’m sorry that in a house full of vegetarians you lost someone to share your favorite fried chicken with. I’m sorry that I was too preoccupied with what others thought of me and not with how you worried for me. I’m sorry for all of the reminders I left in my absence. The flakes of lilac rubber that dot the hardwood floors after being stuck to my reddened palms during every morning workout I endured on the old, disintegrating yoga mat. The scale tucked in my closet that I couldn’t bear to give away gathering dust. My favorite clothes are now left in a donation bag, too big for a second chance, and the memories that now haunt both of the houses you’ve called home. 

I’m sorry that the colors that appear in your favorite season, the oranges and reds heating your back as the sun sets in summer, are now colors that appear in your memory splayed over the sterile pillow in a hospital while the doctor announces, “Your sister will not die today, but she wouldn’t have made it to the holidays if you hadn’t made her come in,” or in the orange hairs stuck to the fabric of your gray cardigan after I sobbed into your shoulder when I lost two years of hard work because I wouldn’t eat before my IB exams; reminders of what I lost, the daughter you could’ve lost, and the sister you are visiting in the hospital as I write this. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise.

I hope one day soon red will once again sound like the laughs as you pushed me on the Clifford swing in our backyard, orange will taste of the tart fruit smoothies that would quench our thirst on 90-degree days, and copper will smell like the rusted lucky pennies I would run to show you. I hope that the thought of me won’t cause you endless headaches whose incessant pounding is expected, and you won’t question that you did everything you could. I hope that one day you will be able to live for yourself, and not as the savior for those of us who get stuck in this frigid reality where you seem to be the strongest source of warmth.

I’m sorry. The words that appear eleven times in this. The words I can’t seem to utter when I imagine them causing you to sink even shorter than five foot three; our increasing height difference a “constant reminder of my growing up.” The genuine mother you are, so clear in the pure serenity of your blue eyes. The pale, icy blue of a frozen waterfall that I fear to thaw with those words. I wish I could go back to when we folded together in the tiny white twin bed, me refusing to let you leave at night. Imagining the dreams that pounded against your eyelids as I refused to give in to sleep—waiting to intervene in your attempt at escape with one last hug. An expected routine for us every night, the comforting warmth of the kitchen rug I would curl up on to wait for you, imprinting patterns across my cheeks. I can’t imagine giving up the comfort of my own mattress for that of a thin Dora comforter, something you did for me every night. An easy request for someone who’s already used to being needed, a break from the responsibilities that your kindness created. A caretaker that I should have accepted the care of—we all should’ve.

My mom has my sister dye her hair a dark brown, an attempt at recovering her past. The brown of the bark on your favorite weeping willow tree. A dark brown, like the color of my father’s eyes when he would answer my tears with, “You aren’t Cinderella, you have a good life.” Dark brown, like the only shade of eyeshadow able to make me embody an archaeologist, discovering the black of the palette after favored use, the memory of you dragged across my waterline every day. My mom, the one whose warmth feels like the first sip of hot cocoa that doesn’t burn when it slides down your throat. The one who smells like pine after the first snowstorm. The one who feels like the color maroon during fall. The one who I wish I could give my all to—I’m sorry.

Destruction in a Perfect World

Is it easier to take, when it’s me at stake

World tumbling, I’m the one left suffering

A risk-taker alone, chaos my one success

It all seems self inflicted-something must be twisted

When will I know how to let it all go?

The all consuming focus on nothing.

The healing scab peeling back like, 

The sticker that leaves no tacky trace like,

The nail polish that flakes right off like,

The silence that follows silence.

lack of conflict or lack of contact?

Saying more in silence than compliance

Comfort in the pain that never fails to stain

Craving nostalgia requires melting away 

Running the opposite way just to feel a sway

Self protection or just a scared reflection?

The satisfying sound of nothing.

The morning after the last day of school like,

The first sip of an icee before it’s sweating like,

The relief after the knuckles crack like,

The need to fall back, lose track. 

Dialing up the white noise, quiets the same inside 

How does the sound of something silence nothing?

Yet an empty buzz shatters a cohesive anything?

Living in the before avoiding any of the after

Dancing with the prince and never pricking my finger,

Is it worth it to be a pumpkin, never moving over 10 miles an hour

Only to avoid it when the clock strikes a little longer?

The contorting comfort of nothing.

The last tick on the to do list like,

The last blink before a nap like,

The water finally getting hot like,

The rewinding mind to keep intact.

Resisting conflict, missing contact.

The cycle has to end – 

my my, here comes step number 5;

Running the extra mile, towards denial.

Not learning, infinitely stuck churning.