Trust that I will find my way back home.
By: Adesire Tamilore
Tags: Relationships, Abuse, Short Story, Poetry

Trust that I will find my way back home.

Dear parents, of whose liquids I was so involuntarily formed, and grown, and quenched, and drowned. Of whose bosoms I laid, and hid, and had been smothered. Your arms were both a bed and a coffin, and call me dramatic, but when I dug back out of that grave, I had never felt more alive.

I suppose my life had to be ruined first before it could really be mine.

Mother, your kisses healed me and swelled me and burned. Vodka on open cuts feel worse than your scorn. Realizing that my skin bled harder than my heart, was an escape from your wrath, an escape from your path. I was grateful.

You were so hateful.

The little things you’d do in my mind were what made you.

And it was me that was dramatic, me that was the problem, me that was the worst out of the worst of them. No matter what I’d say, you’d hold a mirror to your face. It was child’s play, but I was a child, and it had the desired effect.

Father. You always told us to know when it was time to collect. You always did your taxes, always paid your rent. You were good at your job, unlike the other men. You told everyone who listened you were heaven sent. When then, did I finally learn, there were wounds within the words that you never meant? Every promise you made, made no difference. If heaven sent you it was meant to be punishment.

You told me I was clumsy, that I always slip. You said be like me, a little hair on your lip. Just grow the fuck up… put some fat on those hips. Is there anything that’s yours you don’t ruin? Is there anything that’s yours I don’t hate? Is there anything that’s yours that’s worth a damn? Worth my attention? Worth my time or my heart?

Jesus, dad.

You were so hard.

And still I tried everything to find you. You had been lost in twilight and morning dew. My brother woke up crying, asking what did I do? It took hours to get him back to lowered lids. He didn’t run you away — none of us did. You were tired and weak, so you hid. Your words stayed behind as you left the scene. Over time, like fine wine, they piled in me in heaps. They bounced and burned, and opened scars that had healed. Reminded me of things I had forgotten. Reminded me I was nothing.

Thank you father, for reminding me I am nothing.

Mother told me not to listen to him. His thoughts meant little. He was a lunatic, with bulging eyes and spittle. Only her words mattered — she was the one that stayed.

So when she said I was nothing, I guess nothing I remained.

Is there anything that’s mine, I don’t ruin? My notebooks were ripped, my shoes were scuffed. My hair a mess, mother’s tolerance gone. My nails were too short. I lost the wedding ring. If everything was mine then I ruined everything.

I ran at eighteen, and left mother behind. I wrote a sentence on some paper, as way of goodbye. “Trust that I will find my way back home”, but that was a lie.

I suppose my life has to be ruined, to truly be mine.

End.

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I like to spend a lot of time in grey areas. That spot between what’s not really there, and what’s looking you right in the face.

In those places I guess you can find a unique view of self-reflection. Your reality is too limiting but a lie is simply a lie. So the middle ground allows you explore. It’s a place where you can feel more than you normally would. Where you can reach past the edges of your experience, borrow a bit from another, and immerse yourself in the depths of emotion.

It’s always been my belief that what you are extends beyond you. Your pain belongs to others and theirs to you. There’s a pool of raw human sentiment that just swims between us all, ready to be drawn from whenever we want. That pool allows us perspective. It rounds us. It’s where art comes from, where science is born, where empathy and kindness reside.

It’s narcissism. It’s theft. It’s the very foundation of humankind. It’s one of those things that we are all too ashamed to admit.

We are nothing without the collective pool of pain and joy and sadness. Especially sadness.

Without sadness, we might as well be dead.

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Artwork by Saud Y. ♡