I used to think I knew what I wanted, where I wanted to go, and that everything would fall into place once I got to where my soul yearned. I knew it to my core to be law.
Through the yelling, the shrieking screams no one ever heard, and the mental abuse scars ripped open weekly, I counted the days until I could leave. If I had stayed any longer without a plan, I might not go there alive. I would plot my escape, like climbing a Greyhound bus with just a suitcase and leaving everything else behind.
Where do you find sanctuary in the positive when your only definers have been damaging? Between the pages of lands unknown, in the journals, you clung to and hid away, in another God because the one you prayed to wasn't saving you? You learn the only one protecting you from the torment will be yourself; it will also be your hopes and dreams and your will to survive.
But as a child of domestic violence, where do you go for help when you live in secrets, lies, and harrowing negativity.
You learn to smile at school because the last time you cried in public, you were ignored and told your parents to fight. The last time you voiced what was wrong, it was a misunderstanding.
But was it a misunderstanding when your free time is spent sitting in your bedroom waiting for the verbal storm to pass? You sit in hypervigilance, having walked on eggshells all night because she was rearing for a fight? For hours you hide away, reading, but the words quit making sense when the voices got louder, her shrieking higher, the cries of your siblings spurring you forward. A soldier on the front line, I would move, armed with my shaking voice and made-up script. You learn to cry later when you lay down in bed when you get to lock your door and hide away for a couple of hours before you get on the bus again. When you sit alone and read for the first time that day until the words make sense again. Then force a smile when you get off the bus and pretend you're not falling apart inside because each confrontation takes a little more out of you.
I move through a haze because my brain has gone into battle mode; I had been sitting there listening for keywords, so I know the fight is over something stupid again. Something childish even for a fifteen-year-old to gage. I move past where the dog should be, but even he's hiding. The kids are stacked like a totem pole when I round the kitchen island. I waved my hand for them to go away because getting in the middle of this never worked.
They were loved.
I was the mouthy little bitch that didn't belong, the perfect target for tonight's rager.
As the pocket door closes, I take a deep breath and face the moment I show up several times a week when their tempers burn too brightly. Tonight was a good night compared to others; they hadn't broken anything yet.
"Can you just fucking stop?" I yell, tactic one being initiated. I throw in my glove, armed with tonight's script. Always be louder.
They turned their angry distorted faces toward me, Asking me who I thought I was to speak to them that way. I know I'm nothing, but when you've been battered and bruised, what more can they do to me that they haven't done before?
We've been here before; their anger is now trained on me. Good, we can dish this out in ten minutes.
"You're scaring the kids, acting like a bunch of assholes." Tactic two, if you say you're scaring the kids, this may stop them. Plus, throwing in a curse word or two is bound to get insults thrown at me, but that's Okay. It's not my first rodeo. I'm not part of the kids, so I don't count; I've never counted.
Always an outsider, the Blacksheep, the interloper in family drama. The emotional sponge that exists as the make-shift punching bag for parents who should have never gotten married.
She would swing around, eyes wild, teeth-baring like a trapped animal caught in the wild. She had been drinking, and so had dad. They were horrible drunks.
This was the part mom would throw insults at me, dad in the background taunting, things I filed away for later because right now, the goal was to get them to storm off.
My throat is tight as I tell them I'll call the police.
We all know no one will call because no one ever does. The parents know I won't do it because I had been groomed to keep what happens in the house quiet. Because I was a stupid kid, I didn't know anything, right?
My father's eyes are crazy now as he puffs his chest up, and mom is yelling at me, cursing me. I've often been told how my dad was happy I wasn't his kid because I was just like her, always causing problems. Then mother would add that I was just like my piece of shit, abusive father. That I wasn't any good, I'd always be the mistake she made.
I knew they were just angry because deep down they loved me, but as they teamed up to berate me, I couldn't help the tears that gathered in my eyes as my voice began to shake.
"Can you at least take it to your room?" She senses the weakness and jumps.
"This. Is. My. Fucking. House." Her voice rose with each word as she stepped closer. "You don't own it; you don't own shit." She would laugh bitterly in my face, shaking her head, the smell of Virginia slims and Chardonnay on her breath. Spittle would hit my cheek because she was so close, and I would tense. She's not a drunk, she'd say. She didn't need to seek a therapist; she'd cry because she wasn't the crazy one like me. She was always right; everyone else was wrong.
Dad would laugh bitterly behind her, egging her on, taunting me, making my adrenaline race, and causing my vision to slant as it did when the end was nearing. These people no longer blurred into the picture of what I thought parents should be.
It had never been them.
"You're a joke." His voice would boom after the laughter ended abruptly. He would get in my face; it was pungent like moms was, but with Wild Turkey and pot that he tried to hide with dollar store cherry; the smell would make me sick.
At each end, I would feel numb, spent, and poked full of holes with no wind left in my sails. I would melt my posture, check on the siblings with hugs and kisses, swipe at tears as I wash my face, wondering about things I never should. I was emotionally spent when one stomped off to the bedroom, and another slammed out the backdoor rattling the windows.
I'd pray to a God that never helped me, but talking to someone, even to myself and this invisible deity, was better than nothing because no one would believe a liar like me. I'd lay there for hours, door locked, laying in bed and thinking about everything I did wrong because I never did anything right. There was no right way to fight with them because the battlefield constantly changed.
I must be more vigilant next time. Yes, I must listen more before I jump in. But then…
What they said about me settles in as the pillow soaks up the tears I didn't think could possibly be there after already crying so much.
You're a stupid girl; smart girls stay in their rooms and let adults yell at each other and break things and themselves. You are unloved because you cause problems and are a shit-stirrer, which is not a good trait in women. You don't know anything about the real world because your head is so far up in fantasies ass that you are blinded to reality.
It's your fault they fight.
You're not loved or wanted.
You will never be anything.
Even if you killed yourself, would they actually care?
And as the salty tracks dry, the house remains quiet thanks to another soul-shattering. My adrenalin has finally settled, and sleep is becoming a reality. I ask for happy dreams instead of the nightmares that would greet me, but as I fall asleep, something profound inside of me asks me if this all is worth the cost.
And when I sleepily wonder what it meant by cost, it whispers back.
The cost of silence.
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