I Dream a Little Dream of Me

I saw him through splintered wood. So I looked to the window, the way outside... just so I could drown myself in thoughts of flinging myself into a different life. It was the only thing I could do to stop the hate in my body from rising above my eyes and leaking out of my mouth. There was nothing I could do to calm my body from what I knew was about to happen.

It's time to go... It's time to go... Oh my, Oh my... It's time to go... To my happy place.

To one person something as simple as a house can mean so much more than a frame and some wood put together to form a shelter. It can mean solitude from harsh realities or a place full of hurt and pain. Basically put, a house can be more than a home, it can be a way of life, a life full of pain and isolation.

Somewhere out in the middle of nowhere there sits a little house with an open feeling that's enough to make a person think thoughts they never thought they'd think before. In this little house lived a little girl who imagined days with friends and nights with carnivals and love with endless boundaries. In short, there lived me, almost alone in my own skin, with none of the fancy frills of life or the things most commonly taken for granted. Instead, I had puddles and sun rays, dewdrops, and morning hays, that I would allow to touch the realms of fantasy in ways that normal people would question. Now, my time was forever gone, not consumed by these friends I wished I had or simple talk about boys that I never talked about, but gone with a resenting disgusting feeling. Gone, knowing I'll never get any of those days back.

My house was not within walking distance of neighbors, and the telephone was never hooked up. My television was not broken, just never watched for it was not mine to touch. The only gifts I was given, were my wonderful imagination and this country style house of hell I lived in. In that country style house of hell, I did not live there alone. I lived there with a man my parents had hired to tend to the land that was situated in the middle of nowhere. He was a quiet man who paid little attention to me, the girl he had so unintentionally inherited. His days would consist of eating baked beans in front of his television that was black and white static with a beer for each fist. See, he would venture beyond the trees, but not me. What if what was out there was more hell than the hell I was living in with him. What if all the older guys were just like him. Men who would creep along the floor planks that creaked with his oversized footfalls, up the shaky steps, and through my warped bedroom door. Men who waited till the stars were out and the sky was black to creep through the house with one destination in mind. He would take one step at a time making his way slowly too...

I would close my eyes so tight...

In my dreams, I would fall into strawberry fields that went on forever. I would force myself to sleep and meet my soul and grab its hand and run so far and so deep into the most untouched parts of the lighted darkness in my mind. We would lay together hand in hand as tight as we could weld ourselves and count. We would count every twinkle that the stars made and every one of them that shot across the sky in my mind as we counted the minutes till the sun rose and when we could open our eyes again. When we could go play outside again. While we were asleep we paid no attention to the pain because the pain was not allowed in the yellowish-orange gaze that radiated from the silver line trees and the painted little details of the flowers the grew between the leaves in my mind. Eventually, all would go dark, as we would pass out on the veranda of the great Gatsby's house after eating the strawberries we picked while staring across the lake at Dr Eckleburg's eyes. Those all-knowing eyes that could bore through even the deepest secrets to the truth.

In the morning it was all over. The whole tight-knit secret was over and that was, apparently, the way life was.

Every morning the old man would be rocking to and fro in his rocking chair on the porch where he'd stay in the middle of nowhere for the rest of the day till the crickets sang their song and the sun went down. He would rock to and fro until I could not play anymore that day. He would rock to and fro to his own beat he played in his head staring off vacantly into the trees beyond the fields on the property that sat in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes I would sit in the warped front doorway and stare up into his withered face and wonder what he was thinking and if what he was thinking were the answers to the questions I only wish I could ask and get answered. Most of the time I would just walk past him on my way out to the life I created for myself. I never wore shoes when I left the house I always thought they looked prettier worn by the floor and even though I was never taught patience, patience was all I had because time was all I had. Time awarded to me... to ignore what was happening to me.... and live with the ignorance that came with my patience.

Every day I would read a book from the tiny library nook that stemmed off the living room of the little house situated purposefully in the middle of nowhere. With a patchwork blanket to lay across my legs, I even read to the old man when I was feeling lonely. It was seldom but when I did he never rejected me but always presented himself to pay no attention to me. He would look at me with glaring eyes as I sat down beside him in the warped doorway frame, then he would look quickly away when I would go to meet his eyes. I'm delusionally sure that somewhere in his heart there is sympathy for my situation but to look at him you would never be able to tell from his outer shell. He typically would simply drown himself in his own self-pity and blackout the fact that I was only a little girl. Blackout the fact that I needed love, assurance, and guidance but not the kind of love, assurance, and guidance that he needed and gave me.

On my 18th birthday, his footfalls changed. His footfalls came harder and stronger than they ever had before. Out of nothing, his rage did come as quick as a fist as fast as a draw. His care was bottomless. He threw me around like the toy he never wanted. I the burden, the punishment, and the punished by the man, the punisher, the punished for the things neither of us wished to happen. My parents died. No one was around, no one could help, and therefore no one could take me. He could have left. I wish he would have left. But I was just 5. I never would have survived. He could have been different but he wasn't that smart. So he shredded my hair, raped my room, and tore me to the nothing I feel I am. Even though to him I am something. I am his dire need to lash out at the world for bringing me to him shown through his saliva that lay on my shivered skin. It's my entire fault... It's my entire fa la la la la la fault... It's my entire fault that he doesn't love me like a daughter but a cheap throw away lover.

To what did I owe this sudden furry to, I couldn't say. I could only simply lay... as motionless as possible and continue to brace myself for impact. I couldn't slip away in my mind quick enough. As a matter of fact, I couldn't slip away at all before he was there on top of me. His grip, his breath, his thrust meant to kill... but... it was his heart that fell. To the ground, it seemed. Was it the power of my wish for him to stop? Was it my tears, were they so hot they burned him to death. I couldn't tell, so I couldn't say. I couldn't say anything or scream anything or even whisper anything because there was finally NO ONE, who would hear me at all.

I simply laid there. Not because having his stiffness on me or for that matter in me was a thrill, but because the shock, fear, and disgust paralyzed me just the same.

Oh, how I just wanted to curl up under my cover and die myself. But the continuous mumbling sound of those voices I hear in my head told me to finally push him to the ground and sit up. It's late and all I want to do is be able to fall asleep and fall into my happy la-la land. My happy place where I can dream of things that are more appealing than what the real world has to offer me every day of my life. But instead, I stood up and went to take a hot bath to wash away his sweat from my skin.

I pack only a small amount of things to take with me because let's face it. I only had a small amount to my name and although that house was technically mine. I wanted nothing to do with it anymore. My future belonged to whatever was beyond the trees. And I pray as hard now as I did of the torture to stop that it isn't a world full of sick perverse old men who capture me unwillingly just to abuse me then die on me like it was all my fault.