This Hell I Live In
The earliest memories I have of anyone are of a very pretty woman with red hair and greens eyes, just like mine, and of a man with crazy black hair and glasses, like me. I don't remember much about them, like what they smell like or what their voices sound like, but I remember something. It's like a warm, comforting feeling of protection, knowing that I'll never be alone.
I don't know what that feeling feels like anymore.
When I dream about that man and that woman, I dream about lots of green light, lots of screaming, and a bit of laughing too. And pain. Lots of pain. I also remember a flying motorcycle and a man with a long beard. But that sounds too crazy to be anything but I dream.
I live with my Aunt and Uncle and cousin now. My aunt has a really long, thin neck that makes me think of giraffes sometimes. My Uncle is a big man, barely any neck, and he gets angry very easily, and usually a lot; usually at me. My cousin is most like his father. He looks like a whale out of water. He loves to beat me up too. His favorite game to play with his friends is called Harry Hunting. My aunt and uncle don't hit me, but they don't try to stop Dudley from doing it. No, they just yell and scream at me a lot, and tell me they hate me.
Like they need to tell me that.
For as long as I can remember I've lived in the cupboard under the stairs. They lock me in there for days with no food and water when I whine or complain. Or they put me in there for things I didn't do, like it's some kind of normal punishment. They treat me like a slave, making me cook for them and do yard work and do all kinds of mindless things any normal nine year old shouldn't have to worry about.
I used to go to them for comfort, from the silly little kid things like thunderstorms or noises that scare me at night, but they would just send me away, angry at me for disturbing them. I go to them to show them my work from school, my good grades, pictures that I drew or things that I made. I try to show them that I can be smart and talented like my teachers tell me I am. But they just shove it off like it's nothing, call me names like stupid or worthless, then punish me for trying to be a normal kid like they tell me I need to be.
I haven't done any of that in a while.
I try to be a normal kid, I really do, but I'm not. Things happen around me that I just can't explain, and they blame me for it and call me names like 'freak' or 'unnatural', 'abnormal' and 'weird'. Sometimes I wonder if I am all those things they call me.
Sometimes I wonder if what they tell me is true, that I am worthless and talentless, a waste of space, a freak. Sometimes I wonder if the man and the woman in my dreams are real, like a memory I can hold onto to, to make myself feel better. Sometimes I wonder if they aren't real, and they're just something that my mind made up as a comfort from the people I live with now. Sometimes I wonder if there is such a feeling as safety, of comfort, of protection, of being wanted. Sometimes I wonder if there is such a feeling as love.
But on those really dark days, when I really do feel useless, a true freak with no reason to live, I think of that man and that woman in my dreams, and that feeling of love and protection: of love. I think of those dreams and keep fighting, and hold on to the hope that that dream wasn't just a dream, but a memory.
Those days I try to hold onto that memory, that feeling, and fight, hoping that someday, I'll feel that way again. Hoping that one day, someone will save me from this pace.
I know that someday, someone will save from this hell I live in.