Like so many others, I am no stranger to death, it is one of my very first memories…

My Opa pale, still, and stuck in a stuffy suite… I remember being so upset he wouldn’t get up, I remember not understanding what was happening, why everyone was so sad… why Nan was so sad.

There was no conversations about death, only fanatical ramblings about where he went.

Heaven.

He’d gone somewhere better, somewhere happier, that’s the way they’d made heaven sound.

In my child brain, a choice was made to leave us behind.

Nan followed a few years later after a long struggle with cancer.

I was angry.

I was sad.

I was… really scared.

But I couldn’t make the tears come. I wasn’t allowed to cry and now I was expected to… but they wouldn’t come. It made me feel like a freak, here are all these people who have no idea how special Nan was and they were crying.

At 10 I hoped Nan had found Opa and reunited in peace.

But I missed her so much.

When spring flowers bloomed and I’d make fairy rings until my dad would yell it’s the devils craft…

In the fall we’d pull out her vintage halloween decor and id pretend she was watching us celebrate from heaven…

Slumber parties were filled with talks about ghosts and making potions in the tea sets she’d left me…

Christmas never felt the same, my mother struggled really hard, and my dad was… well a tyrant with no one to hold him accoutable.

My belief in magic made him lose his absolute shit.

So did my strong will.

And my quick tongue.

And my inability to be told who I would be.

I’d started to stare into mirrors for long periods hoping she’d be there and questioning what I was, and why I was stuck here.

just

one

time…

I’d wanted her to appear and tell me I’d be okay and safe one day.

But she never came.

I’d like to believe both are here anyways, and I know logically that’s not possible, but it makes me feel better, sometimes that’s just enough to get through a rough day.

So, I still look for a little longer then I should in the backgrounds of mirrors, I’m still hoping to see them.

Im trying to be the best version of myself, learn the most I can about healing and craft, I’ve spent so much time unraveling a mess I did not ask for. I know she never wanted this for us, they did their best to the very last minutes to protect us and love us… and for that i have the deepest gratitude.

But I still look for Signs, anything to let me know that I’m on the right path or making the best decisions I can for my not-so-little, littles. Because i feel absolutely lost in the dark, I feel like I’m going the wrong way and I’m getting further from where I’m supposed to be.

********

Grief just never stops being there, you may learn to live around it, but it doesnt stop. And death doesnt wait for when you’re ready to say good bye or to have learned the right lessons.

Sometimes it’s like someone put you here to test me.

To see if I’m really keeping my word and those hard lessons stuck…

But I dream about your fingers sliding along my skin.

And just the thought gives me chills.

On one hand I wish these dreams would stop, because they bleed into my daylight.

Uninvited clips.

Making my breath catch at inopportune times.

Waking daydreams.

That intrude into my real life, and seem to sabotag my attemps at an even temperament. The one I’ve worked so hard to develope.

I shake them off because that’s the only thing I know to do.

Pretend it’s not there and eventually it will stop.

Isn’t that what they say? “ignore it and it will grow weaker with time, you’ll adjust to the discomfort if you just remember it’s an illusion.”

On the other hand, those dreams make me feel things I thought were long dead.

So what is the harm in enjoying a dream?

And since it’s a dream why does it make me feel so guilty?

I don’t pass you on the street.

I don’t live in your town.

We dont talk.

We’ve barely acknowledged eachother.

I find your energy chaotic.

Pretty sure, you dislike me.

I never have to worry about real life moments.

And still these dreams shake up parts in me I wish they would not…

I have things that I desire, just a little…

Just somewhere to call mine.

Just some arms to make me feel safe.

Just a hand that will lead me through, not glossed over.

Just some ecstacy.

Just a love that won’t brake me in the wrong ways.

Just someone who doesn’t push to hard… or walk too fast.

Just a companion.

Just a little piece of peace.

I wish i could slide out of my skin.

It’s the skin they came for, not me.

Its the skin that they pawed at, that they would shove against walls and squeeze at it’s most sensitive spots.

How dare my skin make them that way, how dare my skin tempt prowling fingers and gnawing teeth… breaking under the pressure in welts streaked with blood.

Damn skin, why couldn’t you be stronger. Why couldn’t you take more pain before you cried. Why could you turn that “lovely shade of red”, but you must know it’s the screaming he really liked…

No one could hear my skin crying at night. It wanted to be bigger, braver, to someday run far away where hands and teeth and whips cant find it.

I hate this skin.

I want to slip out of it and leave it to fend for itself.

Why have you trapped me here?

In a prison too weak to fight back, frozen in fear, and so tired from the pain.

I tried to cut it off… but it only grows back.

I’ve tried to change its shape

To cover it.

But then differnt ones came with their greedy hands.

“Easy pickings” he called me “you can always tell the ones that are already broken in.” As he grabbed my arm, drunk and mad as hell.

That day my skin held it’s own for as long as it could, but he was stronger and meaner, and I’d love to give this a happy ending but there isn’t one…

I don’t think any amount of time will undo the feelings of being helpless and the nausea of strange pangs of fear that freeze every muscle in me.

It makes me so ashamed.

I just want to feel safe… I just want my skin to be mine alone.

If I told on you, would the world be more willing to forgive me for being this way?

If I named every way you damaged me, would they see the sad girl begging for someone to just be kind?

To love her?

To keep her safe?

If I wrote out every shame you forced in me, would they see the pain woven into my smiles? Or the strength it takes to hold on?

If I listed the ways you destroyed my mind, would they understand the depth I can feel, or appreciate my ability to still beleive in magic and the fairies that never saved me.

But I won’t, because even if it changed the way the world looked at me…

They’d have to see all of me.

They’d see all the shame, and agony of being too small to help myself…

and the thing I hate more then their disdain, is their empty pitty.