I lay on the floor. If memory serves I was 8. My brothers father -redacted- had severely beaten me, which had become commonplace from 6 onwards. I would lay on the floor, fighting the incoming darkness of unconsciousness. My alter, Murder would urge me on to life and coherence. Cheering me. Asking how he could help. We would repeat that I had to take little breaths to dull the pain. Mother found me on the floor one time and sat down, brushed my hair away from my red, puffy face and said, “Please just die this time. You are so much trouble. You will go to heaven. Please just die.” The mask came then, that feeling of my facial muscles relaxing, and my eyes going in and out of focus until I felt what I can only describe as the void mask. I would not die. The woman who claimed to love me was not here. This was a stranger. I would not allow my vulnerability to be seen by a stranger.
Little tiny breaths.
Sanity of the moment given by the void. By the dark. By what is understood but shouldn’t be understood by an 8 year old girl.
“Please just die.”
Life of the 8. 