John Lennon once said that the two driving forces in life are love and fear, and from what little I know about love and from what I've seen and experienced of fear within my family, the two are so closely interlaced that I can hardly distinguish one from the other.
I think of fear and the first thing that enters my mind is my father.
In his own way, I’m certain that he loved us. He just had an odd way of showing it, but it was there. Every night, since I was six, he left dark, little kisses on the surface of my skin and traced sharp letters of endearments on the back of my wrists to compensate for every session of leaving angry, red marks of his belt on my back. He would enter my room and hold my face in between his calloused hands and whisper “sweetheart,” and “darling.” My father was the man with the heavy hand and the flowery tongue, and I know that he loved my mother in the only way he was capable of loving her. She still has the bruises to prove it.
~
“OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR!!!” I wake up. It’s 2:51 in the morning, I’m officially fourteen, and the world around me threatens to cave in.
Startled, disoriented, and still recovering from the weight of sleep, my eyes are heavy and I squint, regarding my surroundings as if I were in a dream. The furniture is strewn across the room. The dogs are gathered at the door, barking wildly, and my mother’s face is wet with tears as her cries of hysteria mix with the slew of profanity my father is screaming in response from outside. Everything is shaking as he hammers his fists on the other side of the door, but then I realize that it’ s just me. I keep trembling, then it hits me again like it has so many times before: this is not a dream. This is painful, jarring reality. This is my life. It has been so for fourteen years.
The sour stench of stale alcohol permeates the air and a cold creeps up on the back of my neck as the door swings open and he takes the first step inside the room. His shirt is unbuttoned, his fists are clenched, and a dark, manic look presides in his bloodshot eyes. He’s not himself when he drinks.
I feel like screaming, but instead, right then and there, I start to beg. I don’t pray- in this case, you don’t call it that anymore. I start begging to the god I don’t even believe in,
“make him stop make him stop make him stop.” I wish it all away. I promise to believe. I promise to change. I promise everything. But nothing happens. Nothing ever does. Nobody answers. Nobody listens. There is nothing up there but darkness just as it is down here. It’s all that there is.
My chest constricts. I’m gasping for air and my mother is cowering in the corner, covering her face in her hands. I can hear her whimpering,
“please.” I get in the way and beg him to stop before he gets to move any closer, looking at him pleadingly but all I see in his dark eyes are glassy reflections of my own.
“If you know what’s good for you, move out of the way, or I’ll make you,” he growls. So I do.
Forgive me, mom. The last thing I see before I run to the bathroom is him swinging his fist. The last thing I hear before I pass out are her screams.
~
That same night, I wake up alone and see him standing by my open door. He moves closer, shutting it behind him with a soft click. My body goes numb and I feel my breath catch in my throat. I’m a little child again.
Labels: fiction
Seventeen and studying Psychology. I like books, coffee, lyricism, magic hour, (in)signifcant moments, free-verse poetry, mental disorders, female anatomy, pretty smiles, late night conversations, and the time it takes for two people to transcend the boundary between strangers and friends.
I keep sadness at bay by constantly falling in love with the little things in life. My name is Anna and this is where I try to write.
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