I Hope You Don't Need to Read This

I hope you're not reading this. I hope the Fates have decided to spare your fragile psyche the weight of these truths. I pray this will not prove too much for you. I pray you will be able to bear it.

I am constantly afraid of what will happen next. I live in a state of fear that I will inadvertently make a wrong move, exposing my weaknesses and any wooly wolves in the room will rip my body limb for limb, leaving my dismantled corpse to be pecked over by the perpetually circling vultures. I am aware that the only beings who will contemplate my absence for the most fleeting of seconds are those who disgust me, and the fear of this alone has crumbled me to the ground beneath me on more occasions than it would be considered polite to admit.

I'm widely considered incapable and mentally incompetent on account of visually noticeable birth defects brought about by an angel dust smoking mother and an angel dust making father. The aforementioned father has had an itch to exterminate me since before I escaped screaming from the wanton womb. This has contributed to my rational concern that a murderous mad man is lurking around the corner. He quite often is and his spirited attempts to extinguish my flame are not lacking in robust imagination. What dear old Dad lacks in paternal instinct, he more than makes up for in murder attempts. This is the extent of our relationship. Not much can be said about the egg donor other than she has fed the beliefs about my ineptitude at living to whomever will listen and has taken every opportunity she has had to be a mother and used it to blame me for having the audacity to be born at all.

Where is this going, you ask? When does this nauseating drop through the blackness hit bottom? The bottom is so far down it's hard to be sure there is one. It's hard to be sure there is anything at all.

I grew alone. I grew surrounded and yet utterly alone. Those who did acknowledge me at all were usually molesting me, and inviting everyone they knew to the task. My childhood memories consist almost solely of being raped, neglected, and dehumanized. This tedium was intermittently speckled with death threats from the transient father, which prompted a great deal of running and hiding. Any show of emotion or rational reaction to this life, or lack thereof, was used as kindling for the mother's fires of hatred against me for existing. A child is meant to take the abuse like a soldier or be punished.

This is where we begin. That voice, that inkling of life that had been suffocated out of me in the hopes of a loving embrace that will never come has stoked itself back to life. These are just a mere fraction of the things that have left me bloodied and broken. Yet, as the poet said, still I rise.

I cannot take any credit for my survival. I have survived and until this very moment I have been incredibly angry about that. I have been selfishly carrying this festering wound like a purple heart. I have been vanishing back to the fox holes, never letting those standing next to me aware of just how traumatizing the war was. Those days are numbered.

The world over, brave souls are standing in the light in advocacy for their selves. This is a radical idea of self-love. This is a call to arms for everyone who has been heaved carelessly into the black abyss by those who were meant to love and nurture them.

I day this to you dear souls and fellow survivors. We are not those elements that created us. We have survived them. We have carried immeasurable sorrows with the belief that they are who we are. We are not. We are beautiful beings of light who have managed to rise despite every attempt to put us out. The world needs us now, those of us who have had no choice but to survive.

I hope you have not had to read this. If you have I applaud you for your courage, your tenacity, your willingness to survive. I encourage you to gently allow that whisper of a flame inside you to rise. Allow yourself to come alive again. I pray you find the voice, your voice, the voice that you hear sometimes and marvel at how often you speak as someone else, and I encourage you to listen. I encourage you to give what you have of your voice. Not only will this heal you, it will free the voices of others and heal the thing inside that has been faithful and loyal enough to keep you alive.

Until we meet again, my friends, may your voice ring to the rafters.