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To my papa: our home was a demonic cathedral of fake love. I wrote this in fifteen minutes, it was the only true passion i could observe cascading out from my psyche. Your dirty secret soon blemished my own purity. You’re a traitor, mama told me at 11 years old. She didn’t want to leave me home alone, so she took me with her on a stakeout to look for you at the parking lot of the hotel where you once dirtied yourself with people who i did not consider family. Love letters with more genuinity than you ever had for any of us. I saw the dirty picture they sent you, i knew i liked women but i felt nothing except repulsed. You made my sexual urges feel dirty, you put a camera in my room after seeing my search history in order to prevent myself from being bad, i was scared of what you would do to me if you knew of what i was.You bought them victoria’s secret lingerie even though you said you were short on money because of me, you always said i dressed like a slut. My mother is a “crazy stupid woman”. You put up with her for what she could do for you, work at your businesses. She was your cashier, your florist, and dog groomer. Now, she is a hairdresser at Great Clips, of no use to you, you no longer need to keep up the act. She is “worthless”, a “bad mother” who does not force me to enter a class when i am having a panic attack on my floor, she is “useless”, she does not pay the bills, you do. She did not pay for my homecoming ticket or my schooling, you did, even though she pays for all the things that have ended up making me truly happy.
Im away from “home”, a “safe” place of learning with my classmates. I did their homework, complimented them, gave them my gum, gave them my time, the entirety of my soul with the way I made myself a compliant doll. I sickened myself, I needed to stop, I couldn't, if i wasn’t useful or helpful to them, what good was i worth, i am not innately loveable. I am a scared little dog who has chosen to roll over. I am my mother’s daughter, i have given into the whim of every man, let them beat me. Will i be the one to continue the cycle and allow the burning hellfire to be excruciating enough to forget my children. I tried to make myself good enough, it’s funny, because long ago i realized i was damned from the start, i knew saint peter wouldn’t be calling my name. Are you bad? No, you’re a good man, you say. I made myself bad. No please stop the screaming, i’ll perpetually and habitually give my soul to others to prevent them from making me their next target of hate. “Im sorry, i’m sorry i’m sorry”, it wasn’t enough, it never was, i ran and hid before you locked me in your closet with the monsters you said were with me, or you locked yourself in your room to escape me. Im evil, you call yourself “a stupid father for ever caring about me”. I cut my wrists and bleed, the unbearable sting not punishment enough for you to see my pain, rather, im even more weak and pathetic, you hate me, threaten me, and hit me. Im an escape artist, unfortunately my passion for art has been depleted, i drink and smoke myself numb, but now im even more “evil than your stepfather”. I enjoyed the forced tears that fell down my face after shoving my two fingers down my throat, the burning acid rotting away at my teeth, a routine extending to five hours every day. I no longer get my menstrual cycle, my stomach is in agony at my use of nicotine. i use whitening toothpaste to bleach my teeth, the same way i wanted to bleach my dirty skin.
Now im proud to say i provide myself the safety you never saw me worthy of having, i delve myself into fictional worlds more real than the one you delegated me, i make an effort to love myself. I cant think of my past, with the people who i tried to make my safe place, i try to kill myself. I close my eyes and see padded walls, i hear the voices of psychologists directing me into the “safe room” at the crack of dawn when they know i stayed up the night before, staring at the window, trying to search for remnants of the home and family i no longer have in agony. But now, all i can think to do is be free, the real world without you will have to be a place i can make safe. I will be happy and prioritize myself by setting boundaries, i will be a strong single mother, the love i have always had in my heart only deserving of my one true future love, a daughter of my own. i will no longer self-inducingly lock myself in my closet, the darkness shrouding my rationality to the duration of which i thought i was one of those monsters.