She came home with a bright smile. Her eyes were so dependent on my reaction. I didn’t understand, it wasn’t my birthday or a holiday and in she came with a box. I approached the box with curiosity and fear only because she seemed to be so sure it was going to make my day.  

I opened the box, and there it was recovered photos from my father as if I wanted to be reminded of the person he was and the person he made me become.

My father never really cared about my place in his life unless it was 2AM and mom was sleeping.  If I disagreed he’d take every aspect of my life that was the substance of being somewhat human. I became robotic, every night I knew what to expect and on the nights I didn’t I was so unprepared I became engulfed with fear only because I knew the next night would only be so much worse.

I tried so hard to smile. I tried so hard to lighten up my eyes and bring the smile lines I lost all the way to my ears. But it was so hard, and the more I tried the more sick I became. Pictures of me resting in his lap smiling, his hand on my thigh. His hand on my thigh. His hand on my fucking thigh. It made me sick, but I took the box and said thank you.

I said thank you because mom never knew.  I said thank you because I knew how much it meant to her to hear me say  ‘thank you’. I said thank you to save the question of being asked, “Why don’t you like it?” I said thank you because I couldn’t afford to lose her too. She was the only sense of compassion I ever knew. She never knew, and we wouldn’t let her. The day he passed was the worst day of her life and the best day of mine. I was around 16 years old, but any sense of innocence and youth within my mind and body was corrupted.  I was 16 years old when I poisoned my father, I was 16 years old when I set myself free. And mom assumes it was an overdose, dad had a drinking problem but he never laid a hand on my mother. If only he idolized her enough to not lay one on me either.  I let her believe that because she deserves to believe that our home was as cookie cutter as the one he threatened to cut me with if I screamed.

your hand rested perfectly under my lying, dampened face, gathering a puddle within the palm of your hand. only spreading like wildfire across the wrinkles that rested across your palm, creating rivers of symmetry only you had the power of controlling. harvesting tears as if they were wishes, you rooted yourself into my bed and became a small, brick wishing well. with each tear that fell you wished for another crack within my broken hard shell.

the same exact shell that keeps my giant heart from drowning within your well