Writing:

   In Search of Such a Place

     I stare at the picture of us that I haven’t stopped to look at in years. She is 7 at the aquarium. She wears an orange sundress, her hair is in pigtails. She flashes a grin with her two front teeth missing while holding up a peace sign. You stand next to her, smiling as well. Your arm wraps around her. Somehow I can’t bring myself to crumple this picture in my little trembling hands. In this one moment we just looked so happy. Your smile and the way you made her smile have me wishing I could remember you like this. But those hopes quickly wither away with the memory of her finding a corner to huddle in, somewhere that is beyond your sight. Why did you go and take it all away from us? 

     I hate to admit it, but I’m not that different from her. Maybe the only real difference is that I pretend. I laugh harder in hopes that it might erase the way in which you tangled the wires of my brain. I raise my chin higher in hopes that it will make me feel like I am a little more than just your subject. But when I take off my heavy bag after another long day, I rub my tense shoulders and my tired eyes look for that same corner that she looked for years ago.

     Deep down inside, there lingers a fact that I cannot force myself to look in the eye: I know it is not just her who you hurt. I wonder if I am eternally fated to remain the way you left me. Your palm has rippled through the waters of the years, the ripples reaching me even at my grown age. It does not discriminate between eight and eighteen. I run and I run, but everywhere I look, it taunts me. Is there such a place, far away enough, where your touch does not exist? 

     When I hear your voice outside my door, and when I hear you knock, I have had enough. You have left me with nowhere to go. The tears on my face are getting itchy and snot rolls down past my chin. I snatch my favorite ceramic mug and throw it at the door. It breaks into shatters of pink and green on the floor, only to be followed by silence. I wonder if that will finally speak to you because I know my words did not.