Trauma, Hate, And Self Love.

I hate that when I am asked to write about myself or my life the first thing I think to write about is him, is my traumas. In my English class, we were asked to write a vignette about something or someone that created a passion inside of us, that is important to us, why are all that seems to feel like it made me who I am the things and people who tried to break me? Why when I am asked to write about me all I can think to write about is my trauma, how can I say I have moved on and become stronger when all it takes is a keyboard and a glance into my past to break the dam I've built, to make it spill out all over again and drown all my little villagers, flooding every page I put before me. I say that he doesn’t own me but his name is still written all over my past, his shadow still hangs all over my future, he may have left but he’s never really gone. I suppose I am doing this to myself, I know I am and for whatever reason, I do not know how to stop it, his fingerprints have been left all over my childhood and I don’t know how to grow out of them like I did my old tennis shoes, I guess when it comes to traumatization one size fits all. I am waiting for the day where I just grow up and get over it, where I just don’t think about him multiple times a day, I thought they’d be here by now. My mother asked me the day of my graduation party if she could invite his mother, I looked at her with confusion and resisted the urge to tell her there was no fucking way in hell I wanted that woman anywhere near me, the thought of them still fills my mouth with the taste of venom. Hate and trauma run through my veins just like the heroine ran though hers, it’s less hate honestly, as fucked up as it is I still don’t hate him, I hate the years I wasted and the things my mind and body kept with me after he left. The panic is in my bones now, every knife he held up to someone’s throat lives in my dreams, along with the one I keep feeling like I am waiting for it, like he isn’t halfway around the world, like he isn't done with me despite so many years passing by, but also I am not done dealing with the person he was, or the person I was and still am, still choking on this feeling of barely achieving survival, over and over and over again. I am not over the person his mother is or his sister, my mother was trying to get me to see them and I know there is no way I want to do that, she doesn’t see what a trigger that is, she doesn’t see the damage I am left with, she doesn’t see the metaphorical gun I aim at my own head with a twitching finger, she doesn’t see how every memory used to make me wanna pull the trigger. Fuck therapy, could the release of a bullet and brain matter heal me? The day I changed my Facebook status to "in a relationship" his mother was quick to text me about how I better not make her son jealous, it took everything in me not to tell her that I am no longer chasing after angry violent little boys with mommy issues who don't want me. It took everything in my to not tell her that she's to blame for so many things and that despite therapy her family is still a bunch of ghosts living in the catacombs of my mind, apparitions become thoughts and thoughts becoming therapy, or triggers, or both. That comment lead to the first time I have ever considered needing a gun, at least in terms of protecting myself from anyone other than me. The blockage of survival is something I still can’t get down my throat so I can finally take a deep breath. It just sits there, determined to keep me accustomed to only having enough of anything to keep myself alive, to not fully understand how it feels to live. It’s hard to exist without enough air. And when the blockage once again closes my airway off from my mouth I am right back there, in his living room. It’s dark and cold cause the bills weren’t paid and there’s a gaping hole in the front window our backs are turned towards, a souvenir from his mother's ex-boyfriend, Gary. The fire we sit by is fueled by stacks of newspaper and twigs we collected under the dark cloak of night, trying to ignore the dark cloud over his home with its warm dancing flame. His sociopathy is fueled by the darkest cloud of all, his druggie mother passed out on the floor in the upstairs bedroom right next to his, how could I know that he would forever be a dark cloud over my life, his mother the storm that started it all. But that’s not all, there are also moments jumping on their trampoline, or playing video games, or walking to the store together, or eating at our favorite restaurant across the street, or dancing the night away at our second-grade dance, and I remember one of the reasons I never left, those moments when I could breathe were addicting. When he didn’t have anger in his eyes or a knife menacingly in his hand felt so good that I refused to acknowledge all the times he did, which was far more often than not, but as far as I could tell they never held love, not for a long time at least. I had enough for both of us though, I just didn’t give any of it to myself. Not until years after he left. His mother had her addiction to the needle and I had my own to his stabbing words and violent ways. I guess ending my chase for him was my first real act of self-love after so many years of living in his destruction, he taught me that trauma is one hell of a drug, and I was not put here to be everybody’s rehab.