MEMORIA MACHINA

No, I do not regret a single second

of my adult life so far
Thinking back to all the things

I've done these past few years

All the people I've met
All that I've tried and failed to do

Despite all the growing pains
All the sorrow
All the suffering

The love and the laughter
The countless tears shed

I don't think I would ever take back a moment of it.

Whenever something in my life goes awry,

I've been inclined to blame myself

If I was unhappy, it must've been my fault
That's how I'd been taught to think

In some ways it was true

For the longest time, my mind and my trauma

had been my greatest enemy

There had been many ways I'd been lead astray

by the things I was taught to believe

I'd been trapped by countless fears and insecurities

But I feel I've come into a time

where the reasons I cry are not so easily fixed by my own hands

I blame myself too much for everything that makes me unhappy

When in reality, I'm not always to blame

I practiced self-preservation for so long

only because it was a matter of survival

I know I am not naturally a callous animal

But my circumstances want to tell me that I am

It feels safe to remain in a place

where no one will ever know you

But it hurts when you know you deserve love

and find it so very difficult to ask for it

I did not choose to be born in this horrible rotting place

And I find it difficult to escape

But that's not because I am weak
And it's not because I am to blame

It's not because I haven't yet done enough
It's not because I am imperfect

I am whole

Yet I was conditioned to bear the weight of everyone's woes on my own

Without help or reciprocation

I did not want to make others suffer

like they'd made me suffer

I didn't even have the conscience to realize

the trouble I myself was in

I'd once been turned into a nobody
I was nothing but what they needed me to be

My mind was fractured
Disconnected from my own soul screaming in agony

Now I am myself
But still
I find it hard to ask
I find it hard to impose
I find it hard to exist without being useful

I fear I am not enough as I am
I was taught to feel I hadn't done enough
I was told I was to blame for all my suffering

I was a sinner
Even though I'd never committed a sin

I was misbehaved
When merely existing

Having thoughts or feelings
Was disrespectful

Having needs
Was being disobedient

I did not deserve respect
That's what my father told me

When I was a child he told me
My thoughts and feelings didn't matter

And for the longest time, I believed that

I had no right
To want

I had no place
To desire

I didn't deserve
Refuge

"I love you"
Were empty words

Spoken because I was told to

"I love you"
Was the greatest lie

I ever dared to believe in

Mom, you forgot about me in the hot car
More than once

Hit me because
You didn't know how to control your anger

Doing to me what your mother did to you
Must've felt cathartic

You had no patience
You were too busy
To care

You threatened to chop off my head

with that butcher knife

One morning before school

I hid under the table crying
Eyeing the phone

911 I thought to dial
Like that book you once read to me

But I'd be in big trouble

If I called the police on my own mom


I slept on the couch for years
In the living room

I felt insecure
That my friends had a bed

That my uniforms were never like theirs

And cried about it at recess

They were kind
They shared their toys
Shared their lunches
Gave me things my mom said
I didn't need

The teachers locked me away
Because I never did my homework

Kept me from playing
With the only ones who cared

She found one of my drawings
"Inappropriate" She scolded

I'd forgotten it in my folder
I told her I'd drawn it to make me laugh

Because my dad yelled at me

My class came in from recess to find me crying

I cried that whole day
The principal prayed for me

And I got sent home
Mom told me I shouldn't tell the truth

That my dad yelled at me almost every day
"They'll think you're being abused."


That year when he was sent to the hospital
My mom told me
I was the one that almost killed him

I was to blame
If he died

I feared for him
Because he was my dad

I loved him
I didn't want him to die

I would be to blame
It would be my fault


I couldn't've been older than nine


Unfortunately, he's still alive

Haunting the both of us



When I think about back then, I feel like I'm looking down a long dark well

Feeling dizzy like if I stared long enough I might fall back in

I know what it's like to be down there
Just after the ground thawed

How it felt to have your head hanging over me while I was waist-deep in the water

Feeling my bones chill as I pulled on the pipes you swore were broken

You couldn't stop burping as if you were about to puke on my head

I wanted to throw the hammer back up at your face to make you stop
But it was tied to my wrist

I felt my cold hands slipping on the wet
Dirt caked concrete

I could see the roots of the nearby tree crawling through the cracks

And I thought...
This is what it's like to be six feet underground

Staring up at your stupid face and the grey winter sky

This must be what it's like to be buried alive

I couldn't feel my legs anymore
The chill seeping into my core

No matter how hard I tried
I couldn't pry the part loose

I didn't have the power to fix your problems
Not now
Not ever

In the back of my mind, I imagined that concrete cover

that weighed a ton

Rolling off your makeshift contraption
sealing the well

The light being snuffed out
I'd be stuck in a dark echoing, watery hell

I imagined
You wouldn't be strong enough
To move the cover

To get me out

I would die of hypothermia
My body decomposing in your water supply

Would you even care?

 

That was when I climbed up the ladder
And stormed into the house

I sat in the bathroom
Realizing I'd never ever been so cold inside

Through and through
My flesh was numb

I felt I nearly turned myself
Half into a corpse

Never again would I do you a favor
I left you to solve your problems on your own

It came as a surprise to me
When you didn't actually need me

I felt callous
But mostly relieved

I was free