Deconstructed

Excerpt of a novel I wanted to write a while ago. English isn't my 1st language :)

I am half of something.

That is why I feel blinded, as though my life is a dark room and I can't see the entrance, the exit, a window, a switch, or anything. I am walking with my hands stretched out infront of me, careful not to fall, scared to break something.

That is why I can’t make decisions, because you can’t be sure of anything at all if half of you is missing. That is why I can’t find my direction, because how could you when only east and north exist for you.

So I live in a void. A void, a ball of cotton, so that my existence doesn't hurt anyone, doesn't hurt me, doesnt hurt you. I am half a person, because half of me could never grow, because she had to hide, hide when she was supposed to grow, to develop, to blossom, like her friends did. But she didn't.

So I live in a void. Between your eggshells and outbursts, between truth and lie to make you happy, to make up space, to keep you satisfied

Sometimes I think the rage and the anger directed at me are the only connection you have to me, so you try to express your love that way. A pathetic antic. To search for love where there is none, to turn and twist something until it could be seen as love from a certain angle in my eyes, when it so clearly isn't. A childish antic, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.

I am a child. I didn't grow wings when I should have, because I wasn't shown how and wasn't shown that I could, but still, you're mad at me because I can't fly. So you shove me out of the nest and wonder why my bones crash on the ground. With icy indifference you leave them for the foxes to devour at nightfall.

‘I will not pick you up if you land on the streets.’

It echoes in my head with every migraine-strained pound to my temples. In your eyes, I lost the kid privileges when I started to walk and talk, and I won't gain the adult status until I feed you applesauce in the retirement home I paid for, but then you, the real you, will be long gone. And I will wait forevermore for a drop of affection. Visual, physical, verbal—I long for satisfaction like an abandoned dog longs for their long-gone owner. We wait, patiently, tail-wagging, failing to realize that we are the architects of our own fortune. We have to go outside and leave the void and hunt our own food. But how are we supposed to realize when we weren't taught how to? When we weren’t taught how to grow wings.

You are never with me during the rain, yet always present for the aftermath, glowing red with rage, white foam in your mouth. So you can scold me for not bringing in the laundry early enough, failing to close the smallest window of the house. So you can blame me for breathing out the air that contributes to the clouds that wet the laundry. Punish me for my existence.

How to get out of bed when every step seems to be leading up to the edge of a cliff?

I wonder when the sound of steps on stairs will stop to make adrenaline rush through my veins. I wonder why other kids’s parents speak with emotion and compassion about their child, while mine talk about me like a dirty-pawed, muddy dog that just walked over their expensive white furniture. My teachers always wondered why I brought back signed tests late. Even though they were good, even though my trips were paid for, late but paid for. They wonder because they don’t know what it is like to be scared to ask, scared to make a noise, scared to wake a sleeping dragon, or scared in a place where you should recover from fear, act in a place where you should let your mask down.

I know about masks. I learned how to build them carefully and robustly so they don't break or even ever shake. It is a full-time job not to step on your toes, and I wonder when I will have time for myself, space in my head for myself, and when I will be myself. I wonder who I am. I build masks so people think I am someone when I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

I feel as though I have been deconstructed by your words, your face, your tone, your body language. Limb by limb, vein for vein, organ by organ, until I am just a clump of atoms. Moving sadly, moving slowly. Atoms that have been forever, atoms that will be forever, but they won't make up anything full anymore. One half of something, maybe, on good days.

I have compassion for you. You weren't born like this; you were made. And trauma doesn't disappear when you get older; it doesn't disappear when you're in the delivery room giving birth. It is passed on from generation to generation, from umbilical cord to umbilical cord, from spine to spine, becoming less and less; the lake drains and drains, but sometimes it clogs up and overflows, so the cycle starts again.

I have compassion; I try to save you, try to help you. I am always okay when you ask, totally happy if okay is not enough. I wear long jeans in summer so you don't have to see how I let out my pain, how I try to see if I can feel at all anymore, how I try to hold on to the last quivering bit of control I have over my emotions and my body. I lie about my scars so you don't have to ask more than once, even though we both aren't stupid enough to think I scratched myself on a chair standing up. But I give you an easy way out so I don't take up space in your mind, space that you need for more important things than guilt. Guilt, something you seem to not be able to process right, along with feeling sorry. It glides through your system like a bullet through air—it just hits someone else in the heart. I try not to blame you, because maybe you were the one hit by another one's bullet, and it hit you right where guilt and remorse are processed.

I leave the faucet on so you don't have to hear me plucking the clumps of what is left of me out. I know you don't have time to ask questions, so I give you an easy way out, so I leave the faucet on. I don't cry in infront of you; I haven't for years, so you don't have to ask if I am okay, so you don't have to get upset by my pain, so you don't have to get confused and yell and scream because you don't know how to say



I love you.

..

There, I crossed it out so it doesn't burn your eyes when you try to read it.





So I keep the unofficial, the unpretty, the unclean, and the unimportant to myself. The trouble, the friends, the drama, the feelings, the darkness, the growing pains, the bodies, the helplessness, the insecurity, the confusion, the common colds.

I don't know how to keep all the parts of me together when they seem to fall apart even more with every death. Rattle. Breath. I take.

The only thing that keeps them from drifting apart completely is the common goal they all strive for.

Your love, your affection, your warmth, your recognition, your appreciation, your validation, you.

I exist, I am deconstructed, I am your daughter. I am limbs, and I am blood. I am letters. I am words, but I don’t make sense. I am a half of something. I am deconstructed. The name I was given is Anna. I am limbs, and I am blood.