Rae stood on the threshold, peering down into the eyes of her beloved dog, the dog she had adopted one year ago and promised to love forever. His eyes broke her heart. He knew she was hurting. He knew she was leaving - and that almost tempted her to stay - again. She wished she could make him understand why. “Why does this feel like you're leaving for good?” her fiancé asked her. Because it is, she didn't answer out loud. She offered a weak smile through her tears and kissed him one last time. “I'll see you in a week,” she lied, and closed the door behind her. With her head held high and fists clenched, she silently got in her car and backed out of the driveway. It wasn't until she was around the corner that she let the sobs escape. Once released, they came forth in violent waves – months and months of heartache, frustration, anger, despair, anxiety, depression, confusion, fear, grief. She cried so hard she gasped for breath and her tears blurred her vision, but she couldn't stop - not this time. She had to keep going. She had turned around so many times before. It had to be for real this time. Episodes from their 14 years together replayed in her mind – scenes she'd replayed over and over again, analyzing every harsh word exchanged, wondering for the millionth time if she had over-reacted. But even if she had, did his words and actions have to make her feel so horrible? She'd let it slide for 14 years. She'd made up excuses for him – he'd been neglected by his father and bullied by peers, so it made sense that he always had to be right, that he was constantly trying to prove himself. She could forgive that. She could forgive his bossiness, his need to be in control, his double standards. She could forgive that he sucked at romance and thoughtful gifts. She could forgive a lot of things, and she had, for a long, long time. But then they bought a house, and got a dog, and they both had careers they loved, and she'd asked him (again) if they could get married…and he said no. That's when she finally started to realize that there would always be excuses, because he was a controlling, emotionally abusive, narcissistic asshole. That's when Rae had come to the incredibly painful realization that she had to leave. She had to somehow let go of the last 14 years of her life and find a way to move forward on her own, no matter how terrifying it might be. An hour later she arrived at her cousin's, who greeted her with a kind hug and showed her to the spare bedroom. A twin air mattress and small table had been set up in between the closet and the rabbit cage. This was going to be her living space for the next several months. Deciding to embrace it, Rae set down her luggage and drove across the street to the Walmart to pick out some bedding. Standing there in the aisle, viewing all the options, she couldn't help but smile. Is this what freedom felt like? She couldn't remember the last time she'd gone to the store by herself, let alone picked out something she wanted, without his opinions and insults of her tastes, and his disgusting misuse of the word “compromise". There had never been any compromising with him – it had just been him convincing her why his idea was better. Nothing had ever been good enough for him if he wasn't the one to make the decision. Selecting a blue and purple sheet set and a small lamp, Rae made her way to the check out with a little skip in her step. Back at her cousin's apartment, she reflected on how amazing it felt to actually have a space to call her own - just hers. She realized that this feeling she was experiencing - this feeling of inner peace and safety, of self-expression - was what she had been missing for so long. Was it the absence of this feeling that had driven her to therapy and antidepressants? Was it really as simple as just having your own space? Rae didn't sleep that night. She was too anxious; excited for the new sense of freedom and positive experiences that lay before her, but also dreading the grief and despair she knew she would have to endure in order to heal and move on. A few days later, she drove two hours to the airport. She parked her car in the long-term parking lot and boarded a shuttle. She checked in for her flight, received her ticket, and found her way to her gate. All by herself. After boarding the plane and finding her window seat, she sent a selfie to a friend. They responded, “You look happy.” Gazing out the window, Rae realized that she was, in fact, happy. Deeply, authentically happy. More than that, she knew that this was the first of many amazing adventures she was going to take herself on. She was a strong, amazing, independent woman, and she was going to be okay.

Shrivelled up inside Feeling worthless You ever think a six-year-old should feel like that Just because they couldn't add 2 plus 4 in math? Over the years your words pummel my tiny mind Invisible claws digging deep Leaving gaping wounds of insecurity Your face says it all That crease in your forehead foretells of the coming ‘licks' My eyes dart in panic to the dining room chair Where your favourite leather strap hangs carelessly Just waiting to attack mercilessly and make my skin black Why can't you see that I'm giving it my all? The unending comparisons with my sister's aptitude Makes me want to hold my head and bawl Her perfect scores drive me up the wall Oh the wall, where I distractedly watch a lizard crawl ‘Whap!' My scream, a sob, a bawl Let that leather strap sing Cause that's the thing My copybook page dotted with the watery evidence of my failure My leaky eyes and snotty nose run like a free flowing river Why don't you know I'm trying my best? Oh the stress! Is you, is me, is the leather strap under duress Grannie in the corner watching with eyes gleaming Liking the way that the strap falling Mummy working..oh I miss she No one knows my pain Except God, but then again.. He doh answer No matter dey say He hear My cries, my six-year-old pain Have me thinking to run away On days like this where bliss is a definite miss They say is for my own good But my lost voice breaks my heart Somedays I plot my master escape in my head To sneak from my bed and just fled Lying in the dark, no meal because I didn't answer correctly Math ain't my forte Don't they see I just want to play? The neighbourhood kids screaming for fun and games Me always at my desk Studies more important..the adults say But wait eh Someday when I am grown I will have my say Because no one better lay a finger on my chile This mummy will be a tiger Who wants things better And the power I hold Will definitely be told And the mountains my kid will climb Would be so better than mine For it all starts and stops with me No generational curses and lame-o excuses But the truth that to be better, You must conquer that pain Unlocking and understanding are the key My mummy and daddy didn't know better But these books I reading and these TV programs I seeing Got my brain cells electrifying Change is in me I hold the power! Its up to me..let ME determine my FUTURE!

Aside from introducing myself, I'm really unsure of where to begin. This probably isn't the beginning of my story but it's definitely a start. Have you ever heard someone say, "I had to grow up too quickly" or "I didn't have a childhood"? Those simple statements are the literal definition of my life. At 9 years old, I didn't know how to be a child. I never played with friends, went to sleepovers, or had birthday parties. I was too busy taking care of my two younger siblings. Making bottles, getting them dressed, changing diapers, cooking meals, giving baths... the whole nine yards. I was raising children that I didn't create. I was raising children as a CHILD. My "parents"? They were drunk. They were high. They were fighting. They were passed out. They were somewhere else. One of my earliest memories includes packing lunches for my sister and I before school. We lived in a little trailer in Powell, Wyoming and we walked to school every day. Rain, shine, snow, sleet. We walked. One morning on our way out the door my sister asked for popsicles. Being a child myself, I grabbed us some popsicles and tossed a knife inside her backpack so we could open them on the way to school. Here we are two young children probably 6 & 9 walking to school, eating popsicles and minding our own business. That is until we finally arrived at school and my younger sister's teacher decides to go through her backpack in search of something - but what she finds instead is the knife. Landing my kindergarten sister in the principal's office. Before long the school officer is involved, my parents are called and all of us are sitting in the office. I can remember the tears rolling down her face as the school officer explains how serious this is. Little does he know, I'm the one who put it in there this morning. As he scolds my sister, I can feel the rage welling up inside myself. Because I know it was my fault. The only other thing I remember about that day is getting whopped later that evening after school. It was "MY responsibility" to get us both to school. It was "MY responsibility to make sure she was safe. It was "MY responsibility".... But I was 9. I was supposed to be the child, not the adult. It should have NEVER been my responsibility to set an alarm. It should have NEVER been my responsibility to wake up my younger sister and get us both ready for school. It should have NEVER been my responsibility to begin with. However, looking back now I realize I'd gladly take that beating all over again because it meant that my sister wouldn't have to. I was forced to grow up early. I never got a childhood. I was "mom" to my siblings. I was the adult in my home. Even though I was only 9 years old...even though I was a child.

Covid was a wild ride. I have been struggling with depression as long as I can remember. It was not until covid hit, that it finally came up to my parents. There were long, rough nights, and times I didn't even think I would make it. I ended up self-harming so bad from all the stress, I was put in the mental hospital. Besides the depression I had to deal with trauma that had happened to me that year, and if that wasn't enough stress, I was also dealing with a drug problem. It was rough. I was self-medicating to try to push down the underlying problems. The mental hospital didn't exactly help either. I was unstable and couldn't see a point of living. In my mind I have nothing to look forward for. The country was having social unrest, the economy was collapsing, nobody seemed to be able to agree on anything and the political war was out of hand. I felt like the media was shoving all the problems down my throat and I just couldn't breathe. That was the one good thing I got from the mental hospital, a fucking break. I couldn't handle it. What do you do when your life already feels like it's going to collapse and now, you're in a middle of a pandemic. The cancel culture was getting out of hand and social media was becoming a huge problem. No one could tell fake news from real news and everyone was scared if they said the wrong thing they would be shamed. The pressure was unbearable. This led up to my suicide attempt that landed me once again in a mental hospital. It was awful feeling being trapped in the same four walls, constantly being watched by the staff. It was a nightmare. I couldn't decide which one was worse, being locked up and forced into therapy 24/7 or being out in the real world full of problems. I was lost and there seemed to be no answers. Again, and again I continued to relapse, unable to pull myself out of the bad habits. Soon there was not an inch of my body not covered in scars, but the physical scars didn't even matter anymore. The emotional scars left behind wouldn't heal like the physical ones would. I went through many therapists trying to find someone who could help me. No matter what I did it seemed like my trauma seemed to always resurface. As a woman it was extremely hard for me to come to terms with what happened. I felt so violated but the stigma around my abuse was a thick cloud no one wanted to break. It seems it was never the guy's fault but always the girls. We must have led them on, worn something wrong or said the wrong thing. Now in lockdown I had plenty of time to sit and think about everything causing my life to spiral out of control. There were no distractions to keep my mind at bay. Everything was shut down. Nothing to look forward to, to keep my spirits up. Prom was canceled, and graduation ceremonies don't seem like an option. As a young person it is very hard to get the attention we may want, and if we do it is a negative light. We cannot tell out stories because they are not valid until we have “lived life” and “truly experienced the world” I am tired of people telling me I'm lucky that I am young. What good is youth when we cannot enjoy it. The same people that tell me I am in my prime age are the same ones who played in the streets and went wherever without worry. I was not allowed in the streets; I was not allowed to adventure and be a kid because when I grew up there were to many criminals on the loose. We could not walk down the street without an adult in fear of being kidnapped. We were deprived of a lot of freedom because of what the world had become. So naturally when I became a teenager life did seem like the prime. Maybe we do have lots of mental health issues and other problems that are not being addressed as much as they should, but at least we got the taste of freedom. Long nights with friends, school dances and activities, being dumb teenagers. Maybe we didn't fully get to experience being a kid but we sure as hell weren't going to let our teenage years go to waste even if it may not be as glamorous as it seemed. Now even out teenage years are being ripped away from us. No more high school, hanging out, long nights, school dances, and being dumb teenagers. We were told to stay inside and be safe, to wear our masks and hide from society. I am tired of living in a world that doesn't seem to want me here. How much longer can I stand being beaten to the ground before I won't get up again. Every day I question the benefit continuing life. How can I “just get over it”? I've been through so much and all I get in return is a little gold sticker and the promise it will get better soon. Covid has been a blessing and a curse. It lifted me up and bit me in the ass. Without it I may have never gotten the help I needed with my depression; I may have never told anyone the horrible things done to me that creep into my nightmares. But with it comes the impending doom that everything was for nothing. My life is a mess and that's just how it will always be.

4 YEARS OF HORROR LIVING A TOXIC LIFE It was still a mystery how something good turned so sour in just a few years. It felt almost like a switch was flipped off and his humanity was automatically turned off, turning him into a monster of the worst kind. How had I endured all of this for so long?? I felt drained and exhausted from constantly checking my actions to avoid any flaws or mistakes that would unleash the demon in him. Being mentally frustrated was not enough to explain how dehumanized I felt; I was practically scared of my own skin and was always wired to bolt from the slightest scare. How could a man drag a woman's pride in the mud, destroy her self esteem, brutalise her personality and still expected her to love him completely ?? What a toxic world I lived in. My name is Neni and I was trapped for four years of my student life. 2015 *** Stepping into my biology class for the first time felt good because it meant I was grown up enough to handle my life and take care of myself. I have been set free from the shackles of my parents and I had the world at my feet and the heavens just above my head. In my euphoric state I was ecstatic and crazy enough to think if I just reached out my hand I could touch the heavens above and make my wishes come true. More like my worst fears came to life. Meeting Simon was not as dramatic as first love's seem to emphasize. He was my lab partner during computer class and we sort of bonded over trivial discussion while I admired how beautifully created he was. He was very funny, goofy, knew how to charm a woman and make her swoon,very persuasive in a romantic way and was as considerate as any first year student could be. We made time to see each other outside of classes which proved difficult because of our different time tables, class schedules, hostel rules and everything beyond but we tried as much as we could to hang out during games in the evenings. He asked me to be his girlfriend on matriculation day and I gleefully accepted with all my immature heart fluttering and goosebumps lining up my arms which sent chills down my spine, making me feel I had found my missing rib. Four year down the line and it still remained the worst decision of my entire adult life. 2016 *** "Simon, have you seen my ATM card"?, I can't find it anywhere. I lamented bitterly because I needed to use the money my parents sent to me to pay off my school debts. "Yes babe" I have it with me and I need to use some of the money to clear up some stuff I got tangled in, he replied casually. What!! Exactly what are you talking about?? How can you even say such a thing. Please hand over my card I said with my hands outstretched. The vibration from the slap I received gave me nosebleeds and I literally fell to the floor. "Don't you ever question my decisions in this relationship ever again" he yelled and stomped out. I sat down on the cold tiled floor in my shorts and bloodstained white tank top feeling like a hammered drunk, dazed and too useless to move. Ladies and Gentlemen, that was the beginning of many more scary abuses to come. I was currently leaving with simon because we couldn't bear to be apart from each other even for a minute and he didn't want the restrictions the hostel presented so I partially moved in with him in my second year. I remember how loving and caring he was during our first year together, how he lavished me with tenderness and love. He holistically adored the ground on which I walked and worshipped at my feet. He loved my body like it was his, he adored every part of me, reverenced my core, bowed before my gates, asked permission before taking charge and took me on a ride of ecstasy and over the edge with a mastery that only he could perfect. We understood each other perfectly well, we didn't envy others and were content with everything we had until he wasn't. Simon became more cranky, lost interest in school, pilfered some money here and there, made excuses for his absences and spent all his time in the gambling den. The days he didn't win were the worst of them all. Full Story Here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o04shq93hkaftha/4%20YEARS%20OF%20HORROR%20LIVING%20A%20TOXIC%20LIFE.docx?dl=0

All I wanted to do is to publish this book. But I had other books plans before that one. After many years of preparations, testing, trial and error, waiting and burning excitement, Cruel Summer launch day is here, and the eBook is available at Amazon marketplaces! Cruel Summer is a gripping, unexpected, strong, and emotional YA cross-genre story about an abused teenage boy and a poet in New Manhattan, Michael Daniels, who only wants to skate and enter skateboarding contests, and the loyalty of friendship that stands as the shield between those with power and his freedom. Michael's skateboarding friends, Alien and Victor, are his only hope when things go wrong and mysteries and secrets start to unfold, threatening to turn their society into an authoritarian dystopia. Because when there is no hope left, friendship is what remains. All he wants to do is skate. By they have other plans for him. Cruel Summer has elements of family and social issues, extreme sports, conspiracy, murder, mystery, teen romance as a subplot, and even sci-fi and dystopia as a touch of alternative history. It carries a strong message of friendship. Although the main protagonists are three friends, skateboarders from New York City at the end of the millennium, Cruel Summer is not just a novel about extreme sports. It is a deep story of a family and sexual abuse, and the exploitation of power by those who have the means to use it over the individuals and the population in general. Having a strong human rights and environmental message, it will also appeal to those who love reading these books. Originally published as Okrutno ljeto in Croatian in 2014, Cruel Summer is still a hot topic today. Please click on the links below to get your copy where you can also leave your honest review. Thank you for that! Amazon.com Amazon Australia Amazon Canada Amazon UK Goodreads BookBub Cruel Summer is enrolled in KDP Select, where you can read it for free. Through most of March, it will be at the discounted price of $0.99 before it goes up to its regular place. A perfect time to download your eBook! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08X6JZKRM Thank you all who helped me bring this book to life. There are too many of you to mention you here, but you have my eternal thanks in the Acknowledgements in the book. If you are a representative of the media, please click here for the press release. https://www.bernardjan.com/cruel-summer-press Cruel Summer and I are available for reviews, book tours, interviews. Cover design by Dean Cole. BJ Follow me on Twitter. Source: https://www.bernardjan.com/post/cruel-summer-ebook-launch-day-on-amazon

How does it feel? To birth children and let them suffer for bread? Their cross, at a tender age, made to bear. They struggle and strive To survive in all fear, Amidst tears, education, and etiquette they forgo, For money and survival, they endure. How does it feel? To see these little ones suffer hardship unknown? Heartbreaks and traumas, they face untold. Responsibilities and breadwinning, at a tender age, exposed to. Can we not do the reproduction? Until we have adequate parental provision? Can we not bring them to the existence, When in the end, they will question their existence? These little ones have crosses to bear. But can it be a ‘just' one? The right one for their age and time Can we let them bear the cross of excellence? Can we win their daily bread? And to take up responsibilities bigger than they? Can we birth them when we are ready? And capable of giving them a life they deserve? One which is theirs? I write to becoming parents & spouses. Think of that ‘fetus' life after delivery. Birth, not that child because you impulsively want a child. Birth them for their good. The cross is too heavy for our present-day children. The struggle is tougher to them than it seems. Their young shoulders are beginning to sag. Their tiny little feet are beginning to fret They come to stagger in motion Yet the world lives in contention Some children are torn in between Who may help or redeem? And to help them bear the cross?

I took this really pretty leaf from the ground on my way back home after school. It was a bright yellow with shades of orange blending toward a warm red . It was spiky on the edges, not enough to hurt, just tough on the surface. With the joy of a child being given candies, I happily and gently picked it up and almost in awe inspected its shape with the intent to bring it back home with me. It was a nice autumn leaf and I wanted to put it into my diary where I keep my hidden thoughts and feelings. So I opened the diary and cautiously made space for my newly discovered little treasure, then softly placed it inside on a blank page in order to let it dry completely. I was really excited about what would have been the out come, imagining how gracious it was going to look after I was done with it. It was such a perfect leaf but it needed some work, I fixed it with some tape so that it stayed in place. I waited some days and I was now back to my daily routine completely forgetting about my pretty and lonely leaf. But one day out of boredom I opened my journal to write something down and the leaf appeared in between some pages. It was different however. It was hideous and almost revolting to the sight. I was startled and overwhelmed. It was now an ugly and horrifying dead plant and I didn't know what to do with it. It was green mixed with brown and it was now covered in little bumps that resembled a skin allergy. I hated it yet I thought it would change over time if I waited some more, after all I was the one who picked it up and cared for it, all my work would go to waste, all my effort, all my hopes. I couldn't just abandon it, it needed me, and I needed it to work. I needed to prove I was worthy and capable. Despite it bringing me no happiness whatsoever, I had hope in a better future, in the name of trust and love. And so, days passed and again I slowly forgot about my dear leaf, it caught me by surprise when one day, while picking up my diary, it fell on the floor and this time the horror was even more frightening; it had gone moldy leaving my diary pages ruined where it laid, it fell on the floor and small little bugs crawled out and run under the surface of my room's furniture haunting me and leaving me anxious they might return. I picked up my once pretty leaf and with great anguish and distress I felt forced to get rid of it, as delicately as I could, I collected it from the wooden floor and saw how foolish and stubborn I had been to keep it for so long. And soon I realised the leaf I first held in my hands was long gone, my precious leaf was never meant to be kept in such a place, it had to follow its own path. Live and die under its tree, its mother, to fertilize her soil and feed little creatures outdoors. Love is about appreciation and not possession, I had been greedy and unfair and the leaf had to face the consequences.

If you have the privilege as a woman to never have been sexually abused or assaulted, it might be difficult for you to understand the mixed emotions you might have towards your abuser. Let me explain better. When someone you love or admire assaults you, you might not hate them immediately, heck, you might never hate them at all. It's difficult to go from admiration and love to hate. It's also a very exhausting process. When my favourite person in the world, outside of my nuclear family assaulted me when I was barely 8 years old, I didn't know how to feel. I was pretty close to my mum so I just had to tell her. Before I did, I made her promise to not flair up. I didn't want my abuser to feel ‘bad'. Obviously, she flared up and banished him from visiting or sleeping over. This was very difficult for all of us because we really loved this person. His mum (of blessed memory) was my favourite aunt and my mum's closest sister. My brothers also didn't know what happened at the time so they didn't understand why he was banished. The next time I met him at a family function, I was worried sick that he would hate me. To give context, this man is about 20 years older than me. I remember how relieved I was when he smiled at me. It meant he didn't hate me. It's been about 15 years since this thing happened and although he took the time to apologize to me when I was much older, I almost can't stand him. It was like one day, a switch flipped in my head and I instantly became angry. But even then, sometimes I still admire him. It's really exhausting. While interning in a broadcast outfit when I was 18, I went to get this exclusive interview with a (now dead) well-known and loved musician. Apart from the fact that he was loved by the general public, I also really loved his music. The interview took place in an apartment. First, we watched him play his instrument and I videoed the whole thing with a smile plastered on my face. I couldn't wait to show my father. I was watching this man play live! This legend! Throughout my stay there, this entertainer kept looking at me funny and making inappropriate sexual comments. I was starting to get uncomfortable but we were so many in the apartment so I didn't really feel threatened. While trying to leave the apartment, this man rushed behind me, held me behind and groped me. I tried to get away from him but he held me firmly. I almost had to be forced away from his grip after I raised an alarm and I immediately ran outside. I really admired this man. I loved his music but I was highly irritated. When I got home, I still showed my family the video before I dropped the bomb. I went to bed that night watching the videos of the talented musician that I really admired with mixed feelings. The days that followed weren't any better. I had to conduct vox-pops on this man, asking people what they loved about him. I didn't even know how to feel. When he died and I kept seeing the news everywhere, all I could remember was the humiliating incident. My best friend asked me if I was okay, and my mother told me how uncomfortable she felt seeing everyone worship the man and was wondering how I felt about it. How did I feel? Was I glad that he had died? Did I hate him or dislike him? Honestly, no. Do I still think his music is great? Yes. Would I listen to his songs? Maybe. Sometimes I think about these unfortunate experiences and I'm angry with myself for not hating my abusers. I should hate them right? Imagine not knowing how to feel about a terrible thing someone has done to you because you remember all the good that they have done. If you're feeling this way, I just want to let you know that it's okay to feel what you feel. Sometimes you hate them and sometimes you don't. But don't ever beat yourself up about feeling any type of way. If you feel like you can forgive them, it's fine but if you can't forgive them, that's equally okay. I've heard people talk about how it is impossible to heal from abuse if you don't forgive your abuser but I've also read too many articles that say otherwise. People shouldn't tell you how to feel about these things, it's pretty complex so it's okay to heal at your own pace.

My body says, "No," to have the voice, to say something now when I couldn't say anything before. https://link.medium.com/664bhPALf3

My favorite color was yellow. It had always been and would continue to be yellow. It was one of the only things about me that remained unaffected without opposition. When I decided that yellow was my favorite color, I said that it was because yellow was ‘the color of happiness'. To me, it represented positivity, brightness, and energy. The color yellow was my color. I was about 15 years old, so he had been hurting me for about 7 or 8 years. I was living in hidden fear, but I never stopped being a positive person. Yellow was still my color. He worked at night, so he was usually asleep during the day. Today was different- he was asleep, as usual, but, today, my mom was home. We were in the kitchen, making pineapple cupcakes together. I was frosting a cupcake while standing by the stove, and my mom laughed, “You're pushing too much icing. A little goes a long way - yea, like that.” I giggled and suddenly felt icing being smeared on my face. I was startled for a second, but then I grinned. “Oh my God, you did not! You asked for-” I stopped mid-sentence. My stomach dropped the second I heard the dreadful sound of the bedroom door being wrenched open. My unsuspecting mom still had a smile on her face as she turned around. Suddenly, everything changed. I felt all of the happiness in the room drain and turn into fear. “Why the f*** are you so f***ing loud?! You're f***ing useless! Fat f***ing pig!” The sound of his voice filled the room, and everything happened in flashes and blurs. He flipped one of the cupcake trays and threw the other across the room. With every step he took, I stepped back, until I was cornered. As my tears blurred my vision, I felt my heart pound. I could feel my chest move with each breath, but I felt like I was suffocating. I blinked, and, suddenly, he was right in front of me, looking down at me. He grabbed my arms and shook me as he screamed, “What are you crying for, you pathetic little sh*t? I haven't even touched you yet.” Every word he shrieked sent spit flying at my face, mixing with the seemingly endless stream of tears. My hyperventilating made my throat catch, and I coughed as my tears continued to flow. I instinctively turned my head away, and the sudden movement made me lose my balance. I tried to pull my hands up to prevent myself from falling, and I jerked my shoulders away. He didn't like that. He immediately grabbed my arms again and slammed me into the counter. My head hit the open cabinet door behind me, and pain seared through my entire body. I could feel myself getting dizzy, and my vision became even more blurred than before. I could faintly hear my mom shouting, but the sound of her voice seemed far away, as if it were merely a figment of my imagination. But, then, he was pulled off of me and shoved away. It seemed to take all of her strength, and when he sprung back, he began to walk towards her. She continued to yell, attempting to hide her fear, but she inched backwards until she was right up against the fridge. He towered over her, and everything went silent. Time froze. I could see that there was nothing good left in his soul, if he had one. His presence was more terrifying than ever. He clenched his jaw and his nose twitched, and, in a sudden movement, his fist smashed into the fridge door right by my mom's head. “STOP!” I heard myself scream. This caught him by surprise, and he turned his head towards me. My mom ducked under him, and he tried to grab her as she was getting away from him. I ran forward and tried to push him away from her, but he grabbed my arm and threw me to the ground. My vision went black, and I still couldn't hear past the ringing, but, once I felt my mom's warm hand on my back, and she helped me up, everything came rushing back in. I could hear every sound and see everything clearly. Chairs were knocked over, and there was icing on the walls and floor. His voice was still booming in my ears, but he was speaking slowly and clearly, with a horrifying grin on his face. “Call the cops, I dare you. Clarksville's fastest response time is not fast enough, I promise.” My mom grabbed my hand and ran out of the house as fast as she could. We got in the car and drove to the police station. The car ride was silent. At least, I remember it that way. I couldn't speak. I caught a glance of my reflection in the side mirror. There was icing in my hair and streaks of mascara on my cheeks. My lip was swollen and bleeding, but the only marks on my arms were cuts from his fingernails. Perhaps the bruises couldn't be seen because the devil could hide them. The police didn't seem to be too worried, and we didn't go home for a couple of days. He was never punished. Even though he is physically gone, he is still always with me. I fight his voice in my mind every day, and almost all of me has changed. Except for my favorite color, my favorite color is still yellow.

I've never been an active participant in my own life. I've been inconspicuous, invisible, a contentious recorder of other people's experiences and perceptions of me. Until I noticed someone watching me: a voyeur studying a voyeur. We mirrored each other perfectly, my Pygmalion statuette. Before her, I used to think I was missing the foundation of myself: I couldn't possibly build upon a baseless design. I tried to assemble my personality, my identity, out of arbitrary likes and dislikes, curating my persona to avoid a certain social isolation, but still I felt so out of place. In her presence, I'd realized how homesick I was for myself this entire time: I'd been missing for years. Together, we existed in between the plane of reality and unconsciousness: the lingering, liminal space between the figurative and the abstract. We were abundant within the ample nothingness of the world. Conversations, subjects, trains of thought, that were usually difficult to navigate with others, would be completely coherent to her without hesitation: she understood the ugly, absurd, intangible parts of me, reciprocated my energy…and I felt a great, primordial and animalistic nakedness. Where we converged, we extended vertically, dimensionally, inheriting and absorbing all the abandoned love from the annals of the universe. A great oneiric planar ascension, time had become subjective, giving birth to us backwards. Of course, passion knows nothing of it's consequences. Now, I'm right back where I began before I met her: alone, detached, and yearning to be part of something real, or adjacent to real. You can't be the same, live the same, and act the same, after being known so profoundly. Knowing the majority of people will rarely allow you to be so unapologetically raw, ugly, beautiful, cosmic, infernal, celestial, all at the same time, who will accept your volatility as executive function…it makes one bitter to the point of either complete isolation or painful social acquiescence. I'm bored to death of everyone, and of myself. Her violent indifference took its toll: at her most vulnerable, she'd abandon me, dispose of me, and recoil into her own trauma. I'd collapse all the same from the weight of her cruel inertia. Life after a vicious cycle of emotional abuse is perplexing. I was trapped in these patterns of prophecy: now I'm surrounded by people who fill my heart with temporary comfort; light conversation, uncontroversial and exoteric opinions and interests; people float with me above the surface and keep me warm. Their company abates the biting dullness more or less, even if my body is physically numb. But when I'm alone, I feel the futility of it all. My mind becomes an eternal rolling fog, cut by her silver-tongue deliberately leaking angular memories into my moon-sick sulk. Her darkness is territorial: I am not sure how much of her emptiness I can accommodate. As if I'd have a choice. The pit inside me seems like a bottomless abyss, but why is it so suffocating? And why do I secretly enjoy the pain of this asphyxiation? Why does no one ever admit to the euphoria experienced when one is hurt so deeply? The saccharine honey exhaled from a romantic chasm: the validation granted in knowing you are significant enough for someone to want to destroy; because no one bothers to annihilate someone who is already broken. Where is the fun in that? The surge of energy you experience after draining a star of its magic…not enough stars in the world to revive her. Will I admit that feeling sorrow is my way of binding myself to a reality I can make sense of? Do I settle into bad feelings because I am comforted by the fact that, after all this, I am still able to feel anything at all? I am terrified that part of me wants to suffer, just to affirm the materiality of my existence by its resistance of extreme emotional depredation. I avoid analyzing my attachments to dysfunction. I always knew I had masochistic tendencies, but I only ever correlated that to sexual amusement. Is this how I must operate, after her? Must I feel such annoyance around people who feel so safe, so unbelievably vanilla? Those who excite me, but do not dare to rebuke me? Who do not speak to my profligate soul as she did? Must I remain silent around those who do not have the courage to go beyond conventional thought and emotion? Or have I become so affixed to anguish, to concentric cycles of sadness at my core, that I have lost myself in the romance and validation of her own self-destruction?

‘When you hear the words I love you, what comes to mind? In my opinion, the words are meaningless unless proven otherwise with actions. If their actions don't match up to their words then what would you believe? I was quite young, around the age of 10, when this question first came to my mind, especially since I lived in that type of family situation for all of my childhood. I had picked up and noticed how, in many occasions, someone would say I love you but then you turn around and they would cause you harm, in ways that you don't always expect to happen. In most cases I would get punished for something I didn't do or was out of my control. They would come home at night after a day of work and my first thought would be are they angry? Why would a young child of 5 or 6 have to ask themselves if they're in a bad mood or angry, having to walk around on broken glass every time they would come home? Now I'm not saying that in every household this situation is the same, it isn't. This is just my experience coming from that background. I let those things happen because I wasn't strong enough to protect myself. I would think to myself, do they really love me? Do they truly think of me as their own? I remember those nights when I would sit and cry on my bed after they would come home in a rage ready to take it out on someone. I would hide my sisters in our room and wait for the screaming and yelling to stop before I stepped foot outside. Sometimes I would be unfortunate enough to be on the other side of those words, useless, worthless, you'll never amount to anything. In my head I heard those words repeated over and over again, until that's all I saw, all I heard. No matter how much physical pain I felt, those words inflicted more pain in me than I would of ever imagined. Having experienced that throughout my life was an eye opener. I never learned to trust, but when I did, I was always let down. There is goes again, useless, worthless, you'll never amount to anything.Tears spilled more frequently than not until I ran out of tears to spill. Every time I heard words fall out of their mouths, they were empty. No emotion, no truth, no reality. When people would speak to me their words had no meaning because of the look in their eyes and how they judged me like I was nothing but trash in their way. So when I heard I love you's they meant nothing, empty words just like empty promises. As I got older of course words kept being the same and eyes never changed. I've learned to read into emotions, actions, pinpoint the real meaning behind their words. I've taken care of myself so that others won't have to. That's what made me who I am today. I'm not the only one who has been through this, and I'm certainly not the last one either. Have open ears and open hearts, listen to the silent cries that seep out in every moment of their lives.' “That was quite a story, how long did all that last?” the interviewer's eyes shining in curiosity as she egged Melanie on to speak more of her experience. With a curt smile she proceeded with a nod. “Well, it lasted until I turned 16, after that I rarely talked and didn't really entertain them with my reactions. I went to school, hung out with my friends and then went home straight to my room. Normally I rarely spoke to them only curt responses to their questions.”

Grief. We all experience it at some points in our life. The death of a beloved pet, the death of a loved one. It comes for us all, eventually. How do you explain that feeling, though? If you haven't lost someone yet, how do I explain that hole? How do I explain trying to fit that square peg of their memory into the round hole of the loss in my heart? Especially when that peg is spiked and tainted with negative memories of abuse and neglect. The person who is gone wasn't a saint, they weren't even a good person, but I still miss them! Amanda Palmer's song “The Thing About Things” put it so well. “If you aren't allowed to love someone living, you learn how to love someone dead.” No one stopped me from loving my father when he was alive except me, and it's a damn good thing I did, too. He was toxic. He was abusive. He was neglectful. He was manipulative. He was everything negative that you shouldn't have in your life. And now that he's gone, I'm trying to learn how to love his memory, the GOOD parts of his memory (because, despite all the negative, there WERE some good parts), and it's so damn hard. Every time I think about him, I think about how he hurt me and how he hurt others around me. Every time I think about his memory, I think about his mental illness that he refused to get help for. Every time I think about his presence in my life, I think about how adroitly he manipulated me every time he was in my life for any length of time. I can't extract the good from the bad. I can't just remember the man who was there for me when everyone else bailed. I can't just remember the man who taught me, as a toddler, about life and death by explaining that he couldn't resurrect the dead grasshopper on the asphalt. I can't just remember the times we would talk and laugh and share stories. I can't just remember the man who took me to San Francisco when I was a teenager, for my 13th birthday, because he knew I loved the city. I can't just remember those things, because those memories are constantly crowded out by the bad ones. I write Dead Letters to him on occasion. The irony of doing so now that he's actually dead is not lost on me. I tell him how he made me feel, how he screwed me up, how much I wished he would have been a better dad. I learned the routine back when I was a kid, from a counselor who gave me many tools to deal with an absentee father. So I write my letters and pour my heart out to a father who never would have read them anyway, even before he died three years ago. Now it just feels pointless, and I realized today that somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought I was writing them to get my thoughts in order to confront him. I honestly thought, deep in the subconscious, that I would be able to talk to him about these things someday. I don't know what I expected to happen, but I thought it would be… cathartic. Some closure. Release. I hoped for it, since I was a little girl--the chance to confront him about what he did to my psyche with his behavior--and now I am faced with the stark reality that I will never get that chance. I don't like permanent doors closing on me--ever. I've never been good with that. I struggle with goodbyes, I struggle with permanence… let's just say I have “commitment issues”. Even when I was a kid, I was afraid to put stickers somewhere, for fear of finding somewhere better later. Now that anxiety plays out in various ways in my life, all because I'm terrified of something going wrong later. That “future fear” is something I've always been afraid of, and it has led me to catastrophize almost CONSTANTLY about the people in my life. When my father died, one of my biggest Future Fears came true. It was one that was in the back of my mind for decades--I even had nightmares about his death, some in which I even killed him myself--but this time it was really happening. Now here we are, three years on, and I still can't process the permanence of it. I still remember his phone number, and every once in a while I will reach for my phone to call him, to try to reach out one last time. I can't parse in my brain the fact that he is actually GONE. The reality of his death is so much different emotionally. I have lost people before, but never someone that I simultaneously loved and loathed. It has made grieving for him difficult. I swing between missing him and hating him, between wanting to talk to him for reassurance and wanting to confront him for the abuse. I am a strange dichotomy of grief. My grief is an ugly animal sometimes, eating me up inside. Other times it lies dormant, just a hole in my heart. Every once in a while, I smell his smoke in the elevators at my apartment building. When I go out for my last smoke, I try to time it where the light is just right, and it reminds me of him--of the good times with him--and I put on music in my earbuds that remind me of our good times.

What could I do? My mum loved him. The way she looked at him, spoke to him and acted around him, told me that much; she adored him. She'd do anything for him. I wanted her to be happy. My heart and head rarely ever agreed on the same thing but even at that moment when my heart and head were screaming at me to say no, to tell her to wait, to tell her that he was not right for her, I smiled and said ‘go on mum, you can get married. He'll make you happy'. She was so excited. She hugged me and screamed with joy. She had tears running down her cheeks as she said ‘thank you. I love you'. Even as I sit here, with my head throbbing and my clothes torn, my body defiled, in pain and with tears; not of joy, running down my cheeks, I'm not sure I would have told my mother no if I had a chance to relive that day again. I'll give anything and do anything to make my mother happy. I knew I decided my fate the moment I let my mother marry this beast of a man. I knew he wasn't who he claimed to be but my mother didn't see that and I was too much of a coward to try to make her see. It would tear and break her heart. She had come to see him as her knight in shining armour. I couldn't take that from her. I told myself it was my fault. I walked around in shorts. I tempted him. He wouldn't have touched me. He wouldn't have raped me. If only I didn't tempt him. I was thirteen years old. I was not a virgin anymore. My innocence had been forcefully taken from me. Forcefully taken, by the one man my mother loved. Forcefully taken, by the one man my mother thought was the best thing that happened to her. I would lay in my bed crying every night after Monty slipped into my room and did despicable things to me. He always threatened me after. He said I was never to tell my mother. If I did, he would kill her. I couldn't let him kill her, she was all I had. My father left, he didn't want me. She could have left me but she stayed. Her parents disowned her, I was a result of a mistake, I was unwanted. But she stayed. She kept me. I love her so much. I couldn't let him kill her, so I shut up. I didn't know who to turn to. It was becoming too much. He was making me do things I didn't want to do. It's been two years. Two years in hell. Monty was making life unbearable for me and my mother didn't see it. I couldn't tell her because I felt Monty would kill her, he said he would kill her, he swore it, I knew he meant it. I didn't have any friends. My classmates thought I was weird. I didn't know who to talk to. I was dying inside and I needed help. Who could help me? No one seemed to hear my silent cry. No one seemed interested in my life. Except my mum that is, but I couldn't tell my mum, how could I escape this? Sometimes he brought his friends over when mother traveled for work. Whenever they came it was always worse. They always took turns with me. This was one of the numerous times he had his friends use me and I was certain it was going to be the last. My grandparents were right. Mother should have gotten rid of me from the start. Mother was still out of the state on a business trip and Monty and his friends went out to get drunk. It was the perfect time. I go out, take a rope, climb a chair, tie the rope to the fan and put it around my neck. I kick away the chair underneath me. The pain is indescribable. I struggle. I can't breathe. I feel the life seeping out of me, then – darkness.