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We don’t deserve kindness, happiness, empathy, fucking love.
We’re useless, weak, pathetic, a piece of fucking shit.
And the only way to rid myself of every feeling I’m suffering from is to step back inside the cabin and into the pits of Hell.
* * *
“Brother?”A familiar voice says.
I ignore it. I ignore everything other than my father’s voice.
“No son of mine will be some animal loving, spluttering cry-baby. Placz, a dam ci powód do plakania, ty draniu!”
He always said that; “Cry and I’ll give you something to cry about, you little bastard.”
It was his favourite saying, and he always followed up his threat with the promise of pain.
Every time, with no exceptions.
My ruined back scrapes against the rough wood of the wall as I relive the punches and the kicks, the slaps and whippings, the slashes of his knife as he cuts my skin. My stomach churns as I recall the stinging warmth of his piss on my open sores and the feeling of gratefulness because I’d been so fucking cold and at least it had warmed me up.
“Worthless. Fucking. Cunt,”he’d said whilst emptying his bladder all over my abused body.
I remember clutching my knees to my chest, just like I’m doing now, hoping that eventually he’d tire of beating me. He never did. I think the fact I stayed alive both impressed him and pissed him off. Either way, he took his rage and disappointment out on me over and over again.
I relive the shame and the horror, the self-disgust and the embarrassment as memory after memory scatters around me like dead leaves falling to the forest floor. Each one is just as painful as the next. I wish I had the strength to crush them under my feet, to pulverise them into dust but I don’t, and that’s just as well because I need these memories. I need them to turn me back into the demon my father moulded with bloodied fists, harsh words and rage.
So I remain huddled in the corner of the cabin, naked and vulnerable as old scars are rubbed at and sliced open. I bleed out, new blood on top of old. It dribbles through the self-inflicted crevices and cracks as I paint the wall scarlet with every shudder and shake until I’m drowning beneath memories so painful, so violent, that I withdraw deep inside. I sink back into oblivion under the weight of it all.
Coming here hasn’t made me stronger. It’s broken me once and for all.
I have nothing left to give. No strength left to fight.
There is only horror. Pain. Regret. Sadness.Guilt.
I wish I could be angry, but any anger I have is aimed at myself and the things I’ve done.
God, the people I’ve hurt. The painI’vecaused. It sits like a mountain on my shoulders, crushing me into the ground and pulverising my bones. My shoulders are no longer strong enough to carry the weight of my sins. I can’t be the man my father wanted me to be, and I can’t be the man the boy I once was wished I could be. I’m just a tormented soul that has lived too long, and fought too hard.
I’ve carried the weight of my sins for an eternity.
I’m exhausted.
I’m done.
With one last ragged breath, I allow my body to slip to the floor. Any lingering warmth seeps out of me as my soul begins to untether, freeing itself from the confines of the cage I’ve kept it locked up in. I feel as though I’m floating, carried on a gentle current away from this mutilated body that could no longer house a soul that was both manufactured villain and inherently good. With every second that passes, I welcome the cold hands of oblivion andpeace…
Only oblivion comes in the form of warmth and heat, gentleness and sympathy, kindness and empathy. It’s tentative at first, a light dusting that flutters over my skin. Then that feather touch becomes gentle strokes, and I feel the warmth seeping into my skin, gliding through my veins as it reaches for the last tendrils of my soul and holds on tight.
It wants me to stay alive.
But I don’t want to live like this anymore.
No! I protest.No. I want to die. Let me go.
A battle rages within me behind sightless eyes, as I try to leave my body behind, but the warmth keeps coming. It tugs on my soul as it roams over my skin, gently imbuing heat and life back into my cold, broken body. It urges me to stay alive. It moves from my shoulder, down my arm before squeezing my hand, willing me to hold on.
But I don’t want to. I don’t want to.
