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.
