because i never really knew what had been done with me until now. i never wanted this. i never wanted to be loved for my thinness, my giftedness, my obedience, my suppression. i never wanted to be on guard when i wasn't even an adult. i never wanted to be opinionless. i never wanted to be so dependent and protected that you would have to help me tell my teachers i needed to get reminders to drink water for my fucking scabby lips. i never wanted to gift you handmade cards and watch you stash them carelessly in some drawer like a house of dead moths. i never wanted to be criticised so much i stopped making cards for you. but i had to make them again, because you asked me if i didn't even love you enough to make you "small" presents. and i never wanted to be tagged "wasted potential" so i stop working hard. i never wanted to give you more than three hours everyday to clean the house and then be yelled at for not helping you enough in my study breaks. i never wanted a hypervigilant response to all my emotions: "is anybody looking? am i allowed to cry here? am i safe?" and so i chose the bathroom. crying is water and bathing is water. even if there were cameras, you wouldn't know. i never wanted to be smothered to be loved. i never wanted to let you put your forty year old trucks of murderous trauma on my hunching back to just be loved. i never wanted to be criticised for my best friends of years. you find faults in them too: "she's not hardworking, she's dumb, she's selfish, she's spoiled, he's bad, he's the backbencher" and so because i loved you and adored you and listened to your advice as if gods themselves are advising me, i left them all. you told me my best friend was mean, but i knew she was only outgoing and an excited leader. you made me distance myself from her. you made my mistakes with a boy so big that now i feel just inadequate and uncomfortable to talk to boys. you made me compete with people. you compared younger people with me, older people with me, everyone with me in the name of making me competitive and confident. you made me indecisive. i see my friends with opinions and get wide eyed. what are opinions? new things! but the best part is the illusion: you made me choose things for myself (critically looking at my choices), have happiness (to later show it like a badge) took me places, named me the "second mom" of my sister and talked about your deaths just in case, so i was always anxiously responsible for my sister, so obsessive, that i became toxic and controlling for her. when you couldn't handle this child, you labelled her "difficult" WHAT DIFFICULT? she just doesn't get suppressed like i used to. you told me that you'll be by my side always, even when i do wrong, but when i tell you about your mistakes, you find my faults. when you parent her with yelling and constant watchfulness, i can't bear it. you tell me you know better because you raised me before and then you blame me for snatching her childhood away. i had a great childhood. except that now you're making up for the good so that i grow up. i'm sorry. i can't calm down. I can't calm down. I can't calm down and I don't know what love is anymore and maybe I never will but please don't be rude to me? please love me? and her too, please? Please, only for a year or two? _ I don't remember what being believed in is, so feel free to not.
