SILENCE

Silence is an invisibility cloak. And it is becoming unbearable as I find my way into full womanhood. I feel whole, present, complete… And with that the silence, gone. As if by magic.

I rear up with truth, my front hooves pushing the offender away. “No, no more!” Whoever you may be, do not stuff lies down my throat anymore. I will regurgitate them and it will not be pretty.

The silence kills, slowly, like the overabundance of food put into my body over the years to keep it silent. I’m the little Sis, the second from youngest, the only girl, so well loved and cared for.

That is the promised lie I keep to be loved.

Until I start loving me. Then you are not enough. I am the one I need. Not you, but me. I need me to love me, and in doing so, things change. Shift. No, I will not abide by your lies. Take me or leave. I take me back. I suffered.

And I will not say I didn’t to make you comfortable. So you can lie with the Satan, Tom, who spent a life bringing me down.

No. He hurt me. And he continued to hurt all through life. Now he is nothing to me. He may be to you, but he is nothing to me. I don’t hate him. I don’t love him. I feel nothing for him, he is not related.

I would have loved him. I wanted to love him, or at least feel safe around him. I tried to make amends. But he continued to bring me down. As if I wasn’t sitting right there, at my own dinner table. After years of distance and silence, I tried to make amends, having everyone here, together. Anxious, cooking an extravagant dinner celebration.

He hid behind his paper as he always did. Then outwardly sneering at my inability to handle the buying of this house, conversing with my little brother, the realtor, right here in front of me. As if I wasn’t here, laughing at me snidely. The problems he made out as my stupidity weren’t my doing but the young inexperienced realtor who handled the deal.

And yes, I only sold one house in my lifetime, so I’m inexperienced too. But laugh at me as if I’m stupid, incompetent, unworthy? As if I’m not listening, invisible, non-existent? That has been the status quo. That I don’t exist so the fake family can pretend to. I give up me for all of you.

And, no, at my table, not one of my brothers, minded or noticed, or if they did said nothing…as usual. As he brought me down again. Smearing me. That ended all future attempts. That closed the deal.

That was only 8 or 9 years ago.  And in those years, on this little plot of land, with a creek, a cat, and a husband who tolerates my many facets, I have grown stronger…on the inside. I have grown stronger, more complete, and happier than I have ever been. And the more apart I am from such toxicity, the better I am; more peaceful, more whole, and more visible. Alive.