12

You're twelve years old; scrawny and feisty in that annoying, tom-boy, spastic kind of way. You walk yourself home, alone, and cook yourself dinner; microwaveable ravioli. You eat alone. You turn the volume down on the silence in the house; you feel like part of the harrowing emptiness that resonates throughout the “home” that keeps you suspended in loneliness.

You're twelve years old and your friends leave you because you're not as fun as you used to be. Sadness is such a drag, you know. In your head you create your own hero and your own villain and you play damsel in distress every step of the fucking way. You chase yourself around your mind like a dog for his tail. A devil sits on your back, crushing you.

When you're twelve years old and drinking wine out of a water bottle because nobody will ever truly love you, you feel as empty as the hole that fills your heart. The very same emptiness also threatens to consume you with its dark poisonous reign, murky lake water in your blood. You try so desperately. You try and you try to stop the bleeding but the wound is deep and the blood is steady. You can fix this. You fix it with razor blades and pills and drown it with alcohol; hot as ice in your veins, in and out and down the toilet. There's this girl holding your hair, you don't know her really; some older girl who also had her innocence stolen from her too early.  

When you're 12 years old and that older boy tells you that you're different. He tells you that he loves you; he makes you feel that you're that one, pristine, beautiful, singular rose in an ocean of darkness and poison oak leaves. You pray that they don't leave. You shine and you bloom. You are light; and you don't feel so empty anymore.

When you're twelve years old and that same boy presses his lips; unknowing, uncaring onto yours, your insecurities and flaws flare up in flames. Your mouth is on fire with the taste of cigarettes, you feel broken, you feel empty, you feel dirty, and you feel wrong. But also, you feel like you matter.

When you're twelve years old and that same boy, with nothing but pure malice, knowing quite well he holds your opinion of yourself in the palms of his insidious hands, sneaks his way around your body. You don't say no, you don't object. He takes off your clothes and objectifies you with one sweeping glance. You don't object. Horrible wanting for any version of love overcomes your body's natural resistance to danger, and shame. But it doesn't matter. You are finally important. Look at you! You are finally good enough to be given attention, You feel beautiful. You should be grateful that someone actually tolerated you. This is a good thing, right?

When you're twelve years old that boy throws you to the side of the rode like the piece of trash. He kicks you to the curb, not minding the clear "No Littering Sign", on the post twelve feet from his head. He always thought you were nothing. You realize you're not beautiful. You're a skeleton of something you never were.

You're twelve years old and you're empty. You're a little yellow church left abandoned, a forgotten hunting cabin in the mountains, you're a secret: buried. You are Nothing.

Suddenly you’re ten years old.

 Oh my god it’s so cold in here.

 I’m hungry but I should save some for mom.

The oil company should be here within the next week or so.

How are we going to pay for it?

To hell if I know.

Mom why don’t I have the same things as the other girls?

I’m doing the best that I can.

            It’s so cold mom can you turn the heat up.

 When’s dad coming back?

 It’s so cold.

You are empty again. Again, again, again, again, and again. It'll be years until you know what it feels like to be whole.

I'm sixteen now. I'll be seventeen soon. In all honesty, I did not expect to survive this long. Now I feed the pain in different ways. I like my coffee like I like my poison, bitter as Hades and hot as hell. The skies are still tumultuous; the trees are still ghostly entities that shelter me from the harsh winds of reality and the ocean still maintains its grip on me, the stunning and horrifying power of the pleasing fear. I'm not as dramatic as I was then, or maybe in writing this I prove myself wrong. I’m hollow, and a mother says to a child “Hush now child, for everyone is hollow; why do you think we are so determined to take and destroy?” Black holes; that’s all we are.

I am twelve years old, it is dark in here. The walls are closing in, the air is limited, I can't breathe, I'm empty- I’m empty. I'm alone. I’m cold. Am I lost? Has anyone noticed I’m gone?

I can’t breathe.

But maybe one day I will.

Seven months Clean.  

I am standing on the side of the road. One more step and His Majesty in a black cloak has me. I have seen him many times before, felt his presence, and heard his voice. On this particular night I can see his face. I look across the empty road and I see his face is one that I used to stare back at me from the broken mirror on the floor. There is not a sound; just a mutual respect and silent understanding. I reach my hand out to grab his but before I can reach him I hear my alarm clock ringing and I am reminded that the world is waiting for me.