Dear Me
By J Daniel
Dear five year old me,
When he takes you upstairs and tells you that he wants to play a game with you
But only if you swear that you wont tell anyone,
Say no.
Dear six year old me,
I know you think he loves you,
I know you don’t understand what he does to you up in that room
Disrobing you and telling you to lie down,
But when mom goes out shopping
Don’t tell her that you want to stay home with him so that you can play together.
It’s not a game.
Dear seven year old me,
I’m sorry I don’t remember you.
I’m sorry that I agreed to play that game so many times
That each new time destroyed a different piece of you,
That now the only trace of your existence is the void your disappearance created
Dear eight year old me,
Sleep now.
Rest.
You are safe,
For now.
Dear nine year old me,
It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault someone new asked to play that game.
You didn’t know that you should have said no.
You didn’t know that you should have told someone.
You didn’t know that that game should not have been played by people your age.
You didn’t know that that game should not have been played by brothers.
You didn’t know,
So don’t blame yourself.
Dear ten year old me,
Cover your ears.
Don’t let those words from that man that claims to be of God into your mind.
You are not an abomination.
You had no control over what they did to you.
Don’t go look up those verses that he quotes.
Spewing hate from upon high
Validating the fears of his parishioners in order to get them to open up their wallets.
What he preaches is not the love of the God that created you in his own image.
So don’t repeat those lines of hate to yourself as you stand on the edge,
The edge of that cliff overlooking the Grand Canyon.
One of the signs that God is only capable of creating things that are truly beautiful,
Just like you, beautiful, beautiful little boy.
Step back.
Step back and run to your mom,
Because if she would just see those tears she might finally ask what’s wrong.
Dear eleven year old me,
Thank him.
Thank your cousin for saying no when you asked if he wanted to play that game.
That game that both of your brothers taught you,
First when you were five and again when you were nine.
Thank him because he just saved you from becoming like one of the monsters.
Not the monsters that scare other little kids;
The monsters that hide under the bed or in the closet.
No, from becoming like the monster that sleeps in the bunk bed below you,
Or like the one in the room down the hall.
Not the monsters that haunt while you sleep,
But the monsters that have made it so that you don’t feel safe a single moment of your waking life.
The monsters that are masked by the name brother.
Dear twelve year old me,
I know why you cry.
While everyone around you cries for the boy who’s life was ended short by a rope,
You cry because it’s not fair.
It’s not fair that he doesn’t have to feel the pain anymore.
That he no longer has to hear the names that everyone used to call him.
That he no longer has to face the rejection from the kids that don’t want to play with him because he is different.
It’s not fair that he found peace while all you know is pain.
It’s not fair that when one man murders another we sentence him to a similar fate,
But when a whole community does it, we blame the victim and call him selfish.
Dear thirteen year old me,
Don’t fight it.
When your mom, standing next to a suitcase,
Gathers the family to tell you that she can’t stand to live in this house with this family anymore,
Don’t push back and start blaming her.
Because she will shift that blame to your father and make him recount all of his sins and wrongdoings.
She will make him sit there and tell you how he was a drug addict and alcoholic before you were born.
And when you start to cry and ask for it to stop,
She will force him to go on and tell you how he relapsed on speed when you were eight.
She will tell you that he chose drugs over you.
She will tell you that he doesn’t really love you.
So don’t fight it.
It’s not worth it.
Just let her leave.
Dear fourteen year old me,
Don’t blame your father.
Don’t blame him when the familiar aroma of coffee leaves his cups in the morning and is replaced by the pungent smell of cheep spirits.
Don’t blame him when he moves out and asks mom to move back in because he can’t stay sober long enough to take care of you and your siblings.
Don’t blame him, because he already blames himself.
He blames himself for every bad thing that has ever happened to anyone in your family.
He blames himself because he has been told for twenty years of marriage that it is his fault.
Don’t blame him because he isn’t choosing the alcohol over you,
He is just choosing to numb his pain, just as you will one day.
Dear fifteen year old me,
Wake up! Wake up!
Please just wake up.
It’s just a dream. It’s not real.
No don’t go back to sleep. It will just happen again and again and again for a month and then a month more.
Please don’t go back to sleep.
The sandman is not playing nice right now and if you witness that dream over and over you will not believe him when he tells you he loves you.
Stupid, stupid brain,
Why are you stringing these images together in that way?
Why are you making this happen?
What has dad ever done to you stupid, stupid brain
That you are playing and replaying this horrifying dream over and over in my mind while I sleep.
He loves you,
He really loves you, and you need to know that so that next year you won’t do it.
So next year you wont make that attempt.
So next year, instead of coming out to your mom, who tell you that you can be fixed,
Instead of coming out to your sister, who tell you that it is just the devil working inside of you, and that you can be cured,
Instead of coming out to your brother, who first tells you the line you will hear from countless others,
That you only think you are gay because of what he did to you.
Instead of all that,
If only you didn’t have that dream.
That dream that in the dark of the night
He pulled you from your bed, kicking and screaming,
Into the garage where he took out that rusty hammer with the wooden handle,
And beat you over and over,
Until the red on the hammer was no longer from the rust,
But from your own blood.
Crying and screaming filled your head until he struck that final blow to your skull.
And after the resounding crack of bone the only sound left was your heavy breathing from having just woken up,
Not sure if the nightmare you just woke up from was really any worse then the nightmare you returned to.
Just maybe, had you never dreamt those dreams you would have gone to him first,
Rather than being convinced that you were broken, needing fixing,
Ill, needing curing,
And convinced that you would never be able to make an intimate connection with a person you were attracted to,
Because that attraction was only a result and reminder of the worst experiences in your life.
Just maybe, had you never dreamt those dreams you wouldn’t have covered your ears, trying to protect yourself from the hate you expected,
And you would have heard him say, “Son, I’ve known, and it will never change how proud I am of you. It will never change how much I love you.”
Dear sixteen year old me,
Don’t do it.
Don’t pick it up.
Don’t touch that knife,
Because if you pick it up now, you will learn that you are capable of it,
And you will pick it up again when you are seventeen, eighteen, and twenty-one.
I know the pain has grown so great that all you feel is numb.
I know you have been dehumanized for so many years that the only way to feel human again is to feel the pulse of your vein against the cold steel of the blade.
I know control over your own body has been taken away from you for so many years that the only thing you feel in control of is whether your life continues or not,
But please choose life.
Choose life not because it gets easier, because I know the next five years will only get tougher.
But choose life because the only way to not let what happened to define you is to overcome it.
Please, choose life.
Dear seventeen year old me,
Stop.
You may have emancipated yourself from those that fettered you,
But you have not yet broken off the bondages that they laid upon you year after year.
How many times will you cock back your head to finish off the last drops of liquid pain reliever before you realize it causes more than it takes away.
How many bills will you roll up, or pens will you disassemble before you realize that that white powder snow only makes your heart grow colder.
How many boyfriends will you be unfaithful to and then blame for merely being human before you realize that the cracks in the mirror aren’t there anymore when you walk away.
How many years must pass before you learn that these forms of self-destruction are doing far more harm than that knife ever could.
Dear me,
Forgive.
Dear me,
If you have forgiven, why are your fists still clenched tight with the memories of pain and suffering.
You see, good memories float up because happiness and joy are lighter than air,
But sorrow and hate are so heavy that bad memories stay on the ground, tripping you up until you fall.
Dear me, unclench your fists and let go of these weights that hold you down.
Dear me, stand up.
Stand up so you can hear the good memories as they whisper in your ear and remind you that you are loved.
Remind you, that after being separated for so long that you forgot the image of your own mother’s face, and the sound of her voice,
She finally said she loved you for you, no matter the definition.
That she was sorry she ever denied what happened to you as authentic,
Because it was easier to believe it was made up, than believe it was done to her son, by her sons, in her own house.
Dear me,
Understand.
Understand that none of them are evil, but that evil was done to them,
And it was all they knew.
Understand that before they became monsters in your nightmares, your brothers had monsters of their own that haunted them too.
Understand that your parents didn’t know how to help you deal and cope with what happened to you,
Because neither of them had anyone to help them when it happened to them too.
Dear me,
Realize.
Realize that now you hold the keys to the shackles that bind you.
Realize that now you have the ability to end this cycle of pain and destruction.
Realize that your survival has been full of experiences that make you capable of affecting so much positive,
But if you live your life as the antithesis of what happened, you will still allow it to be the core of your definition of self.
Dear me,
Apologize and ask forgiveness,
But don’t demand or expect it in return.
The most hurtful among us as created from the pain we experience,
And you are no exception.
Dear me,
You are not broken, needing fixing.
You are not ill, needing curing.
You are loved.