crimson wonders

i wonder what you’d look like right now

* trigger warning for anyone who is a domestic abuse survivor *

i bet your freckles would’ve become more prominent.

you would’ve grown into your soul, making living a little less painful.

your hair would still be fiery red, even though you secretly always wanted to bleach it. your strawberry-blond lashes would still curl continuously over your emerald eyes.

when you’d wear warm colors, the blue within them would shine but when you wore cool colors, the deepest greens would appear next to your iris.

an aquamarine mermaid, with hades hair.

you’d be a fighter pilot by now. even though you could’ve been a model. your dream was to be at war; your soul was use to that. not so much being recognized though.

i guess that's why.

it makes a little more sense now, you make more sense now.

i thought about the first boy you liked. how when we moved away, his mom, and your mom got you together for one last play date.

your first kiss happened so young but it needed to be young.

i was always so jealous of you, your essence and how you got the best of both worlds.

i never understood the pressure of living in-between.

i think about your dry humor, your real dad, your birth family. it’s comforting to know that even with grief, you two finally got to know one another, without any distractions.

i know he’d be so proud of all you accomplished. i know he’s probably the only one that understands why. why it all had to lumped together, and cut so short.

i’m sure he wishes he’d stayed - to get to know you, here.

i’m sure he thinks about if he had stayed, maybe you would’ve too. but i’ll say selfishly, i sleep better at night, wake up less, soaked in fewer sleeps, knowing that you’re with him.

there is still this sardonic sting of jealousy that creeps in.

you took my peace from me, by becoming the center of it all.

you even took to the abyss as i had made up my own mind about an eternal soak.

you were always lightyears ahead, more astute, all consuming, and witty.

the man that created me, didn’t even love me but he loved you.

you were his prize, not his junior but his true joy.

i remember thinking when I was little

“when I grow up I just have to be successful, pretty, and kind - then he’ll finally love me” maybe even go as far as to actually want me.

those ways, were always an adaptation of something you could do, effortlessly.

I wasn’t book smart - you were.

I wasn’t athletic - you were.

I wasn’t his - you were.

now, i have to sit in this funeral home, advocating for you, like you didn’t already have everything. at least to me, through these stained eyes, and skewed perspective.

imagine not being loved, being told that whatever you are isn’t good enough, and to be better

“just be more like hannah”

…

i think i’m in the last stages of my grief.

there are days where i curse your name, and others where it all makes sense.

most of the time i just think about looking in that mirror and never answering the phone.

seeping into that black abyss.

but as always, too late. not fast enough for you.

and just how it's been almost my entire life, when it has to deal with you?

stop. drop everything. roll out.

even the world stops on its’ axis, the moon ceases its’ tides, and there you are cuddled up in all of our eyes. waiting to be attended too.. but you hated being called the baby? ok.

so, unfortunately no matter the timeline or dimension, i was always going to pick up that fucking phone. it just wasn't aligned in my stars.

i cannot deny that you were weak, because you had him. his absence made me stronger, and even more so - to be broken in his presence, bleeding from him, and to watch him neglect me, blame me for my open wounds; as he actively attended to yours..

oh, what a unique hell the first eighteen years were, living in your impossible shadow.

i remember, when you and your mom moved in, my privacy was cut; well what existed of it anyway.

being an undiagnosed autistic, i didn’t have much verbiage when pushed, overstimulated, or unable to communicate effectively. i was also sensitive, and shy, unsure of my place, and actively seeking love from any source that would emit even a morsel.

i’ll never forget being thrown from the tub, for saying that “i hated you” all because what i really wanted, i couldn't say. i just wanted to be alone. your mother said I lacked discipline, and something should be done, since she legally couldn’t do it herself.

*

she continues to bathe you; i felt the energy shift, and his weight become explosive as he bolted into the bathroom, ripped me from the soapy waters, dragging me by my wrists into your room; which had been my room prior to you and your mother moving in.

i made a break for the small closet within the room, it had two separate doors but was connected through the middle shelving installed. he tugged, twisted and ripped me from that closet by my legs, and threw me onto the bed.

i can still feel my knee colliding with the metal springs that hid beneath the bed skirt, and the trundle mattress chiming from impact, like a phantom limb.

we wrested for awhile, he was trying to get me on my stomach, unsuccessfully I may add. finally with one fatal swoop he sucker punched me in my stomach above my belly button, as i gasped for air, he ripped his belt from its’ belt loops so fast it made an audible sound.

he didn’t even notice when the leather slipped from its fold in his hand, and he was using the 2 inch metal belt buckle to blister my skin.

then, he just turned me over and apologized.

“oh honey, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to spank you with this metal part, owe I bet that hurt - I bet you won’t say you hate your sister anymore though"

*

i couldn’t even cry until about thirty minutes later when they put us to bed. i had regained my lung capacity. i crawled into the closet from the trundle, as you lay peaceful from up above.

i had three welts on my back from his belt buckle and four running down my left side. it looked like a stampede of mules had run up and down my lower body.

i was told the next day driving to school what would happen if i told my mom.

he followed it with how accidents sometimes happen when you’re mad, and how it’s not his fault I made him mad.

he softened by stating loudly in his monotone joker voice

“I hope you can sit today”

as he methodically laughed it off while sipping his extra large Diet Coke in his beater little wagon, double chins swinging, and spit clung to his boxed white teeth like stringy spider webs.

god he’s disgusting! a pitiful waste of life!

is what I wanted to say to him.

that he was lucky he ever found anyone to sit next to him. but, it never really was that.

he was just some puppet, who secretly liked a fist up his ass. specifically from a demonizing narcissist. she sits behind him, and feeds him his words like the ventriloquist dummy he is.

useless, pitiful waste of life..

but i still said nothing.

a theme of mine i’m learning to release.

he continued the school drive by saying how he never really loved my mom.

how he wished he would have never met her.

how he actually loves your mother; his new wife.

how the love he has for you is pure, and because of this, he loved you a lot more than me.

he quickly following it up with,

“it’s only because I actually get to be her dad, unlike with you and your brother, I actually get to know her”

…

then he dropped me off at school, just like every other thursday.

…

i remember not being able to sit on the floor in gym, getting called difficult by my PE teacher, and written up once I returned to my home room.

when my moms husband heard about it, he verbally assaulted me by screaming at me in front of his wife, and my peers.

i still can hear the echo of his words in that little concrete stairwell.

“she’s as useless as her father, and you make it worse by not disciplining her;

she’s a bully, who lacks respect with authority” as he slapped me across my face.

later, i heard him tell my mother she was raising a system child, and that’s all i’ll ever be.

“good-luck with that lost cause”

…

i bet you never knew that about me.

you and your siblings just thought i was some spoiled, rotten, ungrateful kid.

i get it.

that’s the narrative that fed you.

but after years of denying myself i have an obligation. a duty to protect those girls, and give them their voices back, from queen ursula, and her mindless pet.

i mourn for that baby, who turned young teen. those beautiful girls.

how she told herself she wasn’t good enough all because the boy you called dad.

the malignant lies he’d put in place to protect himself. to protect themselves.

…

i sit here crying feeling compelled to write this down so i never have to revisit it inside of me again.. but I will.

he was your dad; he was just the first man to assault me.

he might have been your dad, but he took pleasure in ruining me. and I reap all of the benefits of his abuse.

now, I’m ending my 20’s trying to release that voice, trying to release you, those cultivating years from minute one, to year 18;

because I’m here.

because I made it here, by myself, with practically nothing.

I’m stronger for it, and I pity you.

I was always suppose to be here.

thank you though.

you were never really my sister, just a girl some boyish man would parade in front of me, as the end all be all of what a daughter should be.

you’ve always been the competition.

the ideal scenario that was held up and used as malignant manipulation.

don’t forget lil girl, I had to bite my own hands to eat.

while you called out from above, asking “why are you always so hungry?”

…

yeah.

I think I’m on my last stages of grief.

I’m finally seeing the reality for what it really was, and stopped feasting on the memories that I created to free me from harm.

I remember the good because the good kept me alive.

I’m beginning to remember the bad, because it’s safe for me to explore it now.

it’s pertinent that I rescue those girls from the treachery that is your lying legacy.

all the pieces of me, are finding me again.

I wonder how long it will be until I make us whole again.

I wonder how long it will take for me to think of you, without breaking into a sweat, or fill my lap with tears, or anchor my rage in the shattering of glass and bones.

it’s always been you. I wonder how long it will be until it’s always me.

sincerely,

- to the crimson crowned amber stained carpet of grief

National Domestic Abuse Hotline: 800-799-7233

Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255