Five and Three

My siblings and I, were fated. Destined to be brought into the world together, as pillars of strength and comfort, in a sometimes confusing childhood. If we are recounting staggered memories, what first comes to mind? Laughing in the face of continuos pain, that almost seemed too ridiculous to endure? The theatrics of the everyday soap opera that was our life? Inside jokes we created, that only we would understand? Or crying in closets when we had no escape. Yes, we experienced almost everything together. But that night, I was alone. I dont recall exactly when the first time it happened. Just the emotions it inflicted. I was scared. And I was young. I had heard my mother speak of her own abuse. So I knew what it was, but I tried to convince myself that my mind had been playing tricks on me. I remember feeling that something was utterly wrong in the way he touched me. The way it made me feel sick to my stomach, when he rubbed the flat skin, where my breasts would eventually develop. I remember wishing I could sleep somewhere else, but space was limited in our packed housing conditions. I relived my nightmare every night until I could finally get away. Trauma can cause us to suppress a lot details, but I will always remember feeling paralyzed, unable to move, but watching from above, as if I were in sleep paralysis. I guess that’s why I still dream of him hurting me to this day.
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When we were young there was always something lurking just around the corner. Some dark entity or villain waiting to strike. Was it “IT” crawling up the plumbing pipes? Or the neighbors? Or maybe it was our school friends’ family. Or the old man at the RV Park. Perhaps that’s why I would look out of our bathroom window into the dark yard and wonder if someone was out there watching. Did they see me undress? Why did we feel weird sensations “down there” when we’d watch sex scenes in movies? And why were we watching things that made our privates go “boom boom”? Is that why I would cry in shame after humping my pillow. Maybe that meant I was the villain...

Did he slap my butt that time by the kitchen island? Did the other one put his hand high on my leg? Why did I hide in the bathroom afterwards if it wasn’t wrong? Was it real, a premonition or just the imaginary villain from the fairytale our protector and tormentor told us time and time again. The stories kept us away from the outside world. So who could have imagined it would happen on the inside; who could have seen that it would occur within our isolated and lonely world...? It happened when no one could see beyond her, the protector/tormentor, screaming energy that demanded attention daily. It happened in the dark. Who could have imagined that our knight in shining armor would be the villain we had been waiting for our whole lives. And just like a true villain he chose, out of all of us, the heart that cried for a savior the loudest, to silence.