Done Then

You were only six. The sheets were soft, blank, flawless like the tender arm that linked the fragile, splayed fingers gently to the stirring frame. Your round cheek, just short of plump, perfectly round faded against the smooth creases of white pillowcase that supported it. Raven eyes focused on hazy outlines as lashes parted and closed several times. Your mouth formed a perfect "o" and still infantile teeth were revealed. The ideal childlike visage was hidden as you burrowed into the down of your pillow. So happy. Warm, so warm. Warm enough to extend your stocky legs and still feel the caress of your own body heat undulating off the gentile folds of the thick blankets. Safe and happy and warm in your bed and everyone was safe, in the other room Okasan and Otousan were sleeping warm and happy and Okasan and Otousan were and Okasan and Otousan were OkasanandOtousanwere.

Dark orbs burst open. Fear was flooding back, cold prickling sweat on flawless milky skin, fear from, fear from, fearfrom.

And then you remembered.

The tender arm was fast, hard muscle beneath the child pudge, the heart was bashing slender ribs as fragile fingers formed a vise grip on a sheet that you knew had never hung in your home. The hospital? You heard strange voices say what you knew, what would play in your head for all the years that followed, that year, you were only six, all the years, your mantra. "He's the only one."

You were only six. People gave you looks of fear, sickening awe, someone cries because you've never smiled the way you should have. "What kind of monster?- Traitor!- Bastard Child- So messed up- Insane!" Insane they call you, insane. Look back. There it is, you were only six, only six years old and expected to handle a situation a twenty-six year old would struggle through, a sixty year old would abandon hope in.

Insane.

See why you were the way you were, messed up. Ten years later? Sixteen. Still messed up. There's no escape, go ahead and resign yourself to hell. You were too young for the burden, too young, too young.

Only six.

But you aren't the only one.

You weren't the only one.

I've stood in your shoes, felt fear gnaw away my happiness and cringed as my heart collapsed and ambition waved its flag, success. I was never there, but I've watched you wake up in the bed that was not your own and scream, I've laid in the bed and pulled back the curtain. And you? Have you ever dared to stand in my place? No. No. I was too young, too young. Ten years later, I am still too young, will forever be too young, I realized upon first relenting my resistance to hell. But it was done then. I was only thirteen.