and i read.

i write in pencil

i write words that i am afraid to say

out loud

i know how much

my words can harm -

in the 8th grade

when i took my father’s advice

(his advice was law, though he’d probably deny that

not seeing his absolute influence over me)

i told my best friend

in a letter

that i was afraid

she would go to hell

if she died during her

-very necessary-

heart surgery.

and she turned nearly the entire school against me.

(so, the damage religion has done to and through me is so much

of my story.)

So, I know what power my words can hold -

and i write in pencil.

I am trying to write about

my father.

I haven’t talked to him in years.

but still

his presence in my mind

is enough

to stop the words from

coming.

in jr. high

-my mother tells me-

i was bullied everyday.

I cried every time she dropped me off.

I remember the mean girls,

and some instances of bullying

-being asked out as a joke-

I remember one of my only friends telling the

mean girls

a lie about me.

I don’t remember what,

but i remember crying in the bathroom.

sobbing, in a bathroom stall,

unable to keep it under control anymore.

broken.

I remember the PE teacher telling me

...something.

that i was worth more.

It’s mostly a blur, or blacked out with nothing there.

I remember-

but no.

I wanted to talk about my father.

When i was in Jr. High

i was bullied

a lot.

I stopped caring

about living,

but that was not allowed

(oops, there’s that religious injury again).

and i didnt understand suicidal ideation

or depression -really-

even though my mother suffered from it.

Depression was indicative of an unhealthy spiritual life and so

MUST BE DENIED

I stopped doing my homework

i hid notices from school

i hid my status reports

and

until my report card turned up…

I read.

and read.

I escaped the bleak, tormented reality

that i had to deal with everyday

-persecution means people know you are GOD’S FAVORED

did you know that!?

so the more bullied you are, the MORE god LOVES you!-

I read.

I read book after book after book.

Mostly fiction.

Fantasy.

Sci-Fi.

Adventure.

I read every single book the library had about insects.

The Titanic.

anything that could take me away for awhile.

I would lose myself so deep that i would startle and get annoyed(not allowed!) when someone interrupted.

I would read until i passed out at night.

At lunch.

In class.

I needed to escape all the time, then.

I was a bright, sensitive girl.

I wanted to like everyone and for everyone to like me, and learning the world was not that way was hard.

So, I read instead of homework.

And I hid all the notices they sent home.

And then my Report Card came,

and my mother said something like,

“I can’t even look at your face right now.”

And I ran away from home.

I wrote a note, which i think my parents still have,

about how sorry I was, that i didn’t want to be a burden

(things i recognize as an adult as painfully similar to so many, many suicide notes)

I wrote a note and i ran away

and i went to the library.

I was in Jr. High. I had no friends.

The library -

books -

was the only place that felt like home.

So i went there and i hid behind a sofa in the children's section and thought about what to do

and i read.

I brought crackers and water.

but not enough.

A man approached me after a few hours,

or maybe only after a few quarter hours

-i call him THE VAMPIRE-

and he wanted me to go with him.

He asked about my book,

my name.

He invited me outside,

but i don't remember what for.

I refused and he left.

And then i was afraid to leave.

and i read.

My parents found me in the late afternoon -

my mother said “I knew she’d be here.”

my mother said, “where else would she have gone?”

on the ride home

my father asks

annoyed and incredulous

“where were you going to sleep? what were you going to eat?”

and i answer.

because to not answer a question

asked by a parent

especially your father

was. not. allowed.

I say,

“I was going to climb onto an apartment building roof to sleep.”

I say,

“I brought food.”

And my father scoffs at my lack of planning.

my stupidity.

my inability.

he says,

“You’re lucky we found you. You could have been kidnapped or worse.”

My mother says nothing, because it’s true.

I don’t mention THE VAMPIRE because i am exhausted and afraid of my father’s retribution.

I know now as an adult with an adult understanding:

I hadn’t intended to survive.

I don’t remember if we ever talked, really, about me running away.

I think we must have.

...but I don’t remember.

And then my parents grounded me from reading.

I could read nothing but THE BIBLE and my school books.

and

I was ordered

to write, long hand, every single verse about lying in the bible.

I’m pretty sure it was my father’s idea,

but i don’t have the courage to ask my mother.

The grounding from reading never really “worked.”

You can’t just take away the life preserver from

a drowning person and expect them

not to fight back.

not unless they

are young

have no power

and are influenced almost totally

solely by

you.

I think that’s why it

surprised

my father

when i didn’t immediately

obey.

If you ask my parents now

or if i mention being grounded from reading

(which surprises people every time they hear it,

and which i joke about because to think otherwise hurts too

much)

the response is usually something like

“we didn’t know what else to do.

we didn’t know how to get her to obey.”

and there are two parts to that:

the lack of education about personality type

and mental health

and how to help young children being

severely bullied

to the point of

suicidal ideations.

and

the desire for a

“good,”

“obedient,”

“christlike” child.

also,

the confusion of suddenly having a child who was

once

all of these things

and is now suddenly

seemingly

apathetic.

careless.

recalcitrant.

disrespectful.

And, now, i am trapped between

wanting to understand my parents

the way their minds

and ideologies work

and understand they were just doing the best they could

and

and

hurting so much

for that little girl

so lost and wounded

not wanting to live but

not knowing how to die.

not understanding wanting to die.

She just needed help.

and instead

someone pushed her out of her lifeboat

and gave her

bible verses

as punishment

“It’s not punishment!” my father said when i protested.

“You’re thinking of it wrong!”

adding yet another failure to the stack of failures

marked “daughter.”

but

have you ever read the verses in the bible

about lying?

they’re mostly…

punishments.

and condemnations.

the most memorable being

Ananias and Saphira

who god killed for lying.

I was in jr high.

i was broken

and suffering

struggling to stay afloat.

I wasn’t copying words that could lift me up and tell me how not to lie,

or how to tell my parents why i had lied…

Just condemnations and promises of unimaginable punishments from a god

who

hated

liars.

and thus

me.

I ache for that small child.

for me.