A Face With No I’s

Chapter Soundtrack: “The Night We Met” – Lord Huron

I can’t do this.

It’s been too hard for too long. I can’t find the light anymore.

“You are a disgrace,” my dad’s words echo in my soul. “You fucking cunt. You fucking bitch.”

“Don’t call me that,” I said, with my chin up, throat exposed.

“If you don’t want me to call you that, then don’t act like a bitch. You get what you deserve,” my dad justified his choice. “I can see why your ex-boyfriend yelled at you. You are a little fucking bitch.”

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never own me.

“There is something rotten inside of you,” my dad said.

I sit with my monster in the dark. I am alone with it, wondering if I should let it eat me.

I need to get up. I need to try to save myself, but for what?

“The Life You Live is a Choice, Amber. You are choosing this pain for yourself. You can also choose to let it go,” God whispers to me.

I know I am not the names my dad calls me. I know I don’t deserve to be treated poorly, but I allow it. I stay in the abuse because I understand why it’s there. My dad is a dying man, and dying is hard to do.

“You will never know me,” my dad cried into the hollow. “You will never see me.”

I would cut out my eyes and hand them to him to read like a book if I thought he could understand my vision.

I see my dad as the little boy he was before me. He’s beaten. He’s abandoned. He’s afraid. I see my dad sitting with his monster, and his monster feeding him shame.

“I hate you too. Maybe that’s the last thing you’ll ever say to me.”

I told my dad I am looking forward to his death. “I hate you,” I screamed. “I fucking hate you.”

I lied to my dad while I told him the truth.