Dedication: my baby brother ~ I should have abandoned mum for you and im sorry.
From the day i was born i have been an outcast from society. My mother was 22 when she gave birth to me on the side of a country road in Northumberland because she was too poor to afford a car. My father was in America, and he already had 7 wives. I am the 17th born child recognised by him. I was raised by my mother and the only structure in my life was my father’s hippie, neo-native american cult that he’d started. I was happy because I was free. But then my mother fell in love in America and the life I’d grown up to came to a halt. I moved into a house with a small hispanic woman who couldn’t understand my need to roam. I loved her because she was somebody who loved me yet she was also the first person I ever hated. I went to an irish catholic founded public school where my beliefs were crushed by their religion. My mother broke up with her and to my great surprise we did not resume our life between the sun and sea but instead she fell in love again. My father died and I was left a scared little girl who had a withdrawn mother and a younger brother who couldn’t understand it yet. And maybe i could have let my father go except that the last thing he ever asked me who i was, who was my mother. I despised him because he couldn’t recognise his own child and I loved him so deeply that when he died I wrote to him every day in a little pink book. I grew and my mother moved in with her girlfriend who then became her wife. I changed schools, changed my life. My mother thought we were happy but all her wife knew was how to ridicule and berate us. She would scream at me so much that I’d pee myself from fear. I had no friends because of her, I couldn’t leave my home except to go to school. and then, in private if i fucked up, shed slam me so hard into a wall id leave bruises on my back. Or grab my arms so hard that they’d turn red or even bruise. It was only little things in the beginning. Besides that, we were truly poor and my mother was an immigrant (from England). The first time I ever felt fear of somebody was when a classmate pointed at me and told me he’d deport my mother. And I knew that would make my mother sad since she truly loved this land. And why else would I keep quiet about my abuse. My mother couldn’t stay here unless she was married. So for my mother’s sake i never said anything but instead i destroyed that child’s social life. God, I was a monster. For six years I withdrew from my mother and brother and then, a week before they separated they had a fight. my mother got angry and left, I locked my younger brother in our closet and sat with my back to the door. She Hit the door so hard it came out of its frame. and then she dragged me into another room with my hair and proceeded to kick me. I broke three ribs. We went to school the next day and when I came home the emergency ladder to our window was gone. My mother had another fight and this time she didn’t do anything but scream at me when my mother left. God i hated my mother because she left me. and i don’t remember much else but a few days later my mother left again after an argument and all i remember was trying to sneak to the kitchen because my brother was hungry and she took the side of my head and slammed it into the wall, over and over again. My mother never knew, and I made sure that my baby brother never knew. When they got divorced my mother cried but I laughed at her. Life was hard and we were poor but I didn’t mind. my mother earned more anr more money, not a lot but some. and then, when i was 16 i got sick. Really really sick. I have something wrong with my nerves that cause them to send pain signals instead of any other signals all down my left side. I can’t eat or drink or move without it feeling like sombodys stabbing me. It used to make me cry and scream and writhe but that only made it worse. And then i dropped almost 70 pounds in 3 months. I fainted a few times and finally I was hospitalized. haha they traumatized me enough to never want to go back. It took me almost two year but I’m back to my old weight. saldy my heart and blood haven’t recovered. My blood sugar is out of control, along with my blood pressure and i’m severely anemic. I already had a genetic heart disease and my heartbeat beat a little slower than everybody else’s. I can feel myself dying. and it’s a horrid thing. I wonder if my father did this when he died. The everyday pain I struggle through is making me go crazy. I can feel my reality slip sometimes and it’s horrible. I’ll cry and scremainto my pillows because my body feels like it’s being torn apart and afterwards I’m drained. Drained of everything that makes me, me. I could die tomorrow or i could die in 5 years but i know that’s the max amount i’ve got. I’m 18 now and I probably won’t live to see my 23 birthday. The worst part is that i hide it away form everybody. I hide away in my room so my mother and brother don’t see how I thrash and cry for help. How I beg and plead for a break. Nobody knows how truly sick i am anymore. and i don’t know if i can tell my mother that i’ll never see her 50th birthday or that i’ll never see my baby brother go to college. And because my head is beating in my life is replaced by nothingness excerpt pain. My memories slip away from my head like a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Some days I wake up and I can barely remember my own name. Everybody always tells me that it’ll be okay but I know that they’re lying because I’m lying to them. If i could i’d try to live a fulfilling life before i die in a few short years but my body won’t allow it. Ha my ex called me a monster because when he said i love you i told him it wouldn’t work out for us. Not because I didn’t love him, gods i ddi, but because when I was hospitalized he thought I’d ghosted him, when I fainted and lay on his kitchen floor unable to move he never came to find me. Because when i smiled at him he always smiled back and asked me how my day was. Because i could die slowly in front of him because i knew he’d kill himself because of it. So i’m a heartless monster. We do necessary things, sacrifice a little bit of ourselves so that we can live with little regrets.
So all i can say to anybody reading this is that if you feel like life is terrible just get yourself a plant and stick it right next to your bed. and when it all becomes too much put the plant on your bed and lay down next to it with your lights off and just talk to it. Tell it everything that’s so fucked up in your life and when you’re done turn the plant around so you see a different side and thank it. No need to try and find something positive about yourself just thank the plant for letting you unload your shattering mind upon it.