a small bit of twine

~

A small bit of twine twisted around my wrist, embedding in my skin. I think the year was 1982. I didn't notice it at first until I felt the first tug pulling my small body in a direction I didn't want to go.

It held me in night terrors, my young mind unconsciously processing my fear of not having a protector to keep the boogeyman away. An absentee father at the source. Instability my constant.

A new strand pressed against my pulse point as the 'd' word floated around. I was 9 when my mom told me on a drive home in our shitty Dodge Omni. I cried the rest of the way, but secretly on some level I was relieved. My parents weren't right for each other.

The tug grew stronger, the scrape of rough jute and sisal chaffing as we moved to the first house I ever lived in. My mom found a new love and they were married shortly after. The year was 1985.

I finally had a home, not a cramped apartment. But things went poorly for me there. The dream of a fresh start faded as prison bars grew. And the cord strengthened, slowly creeping up my neck, dragging me into darkness. It held me there for years creating a map of tangled webs, a tapestry of abuse, a chokehold of broken trust.

But I was forged in fire, my will slowly turning to steel. I became stubborn and fiercely independent. I became my own champion. Or at least I tried.

We moved again once more before I graduated high school. This time the tether drug me along to a place where I found my best friends in life. I thought I'd left them behind, but for once, my binding brought me a beautiful gift. A reprieve.

The bruises and tender skin from those ties squeezing me finally felt numb. I knew the bindings were still there, always present, lurking with promises of torment. But those friendships were a balm to my soul, sharing my burdens as I helped to carry theirs in return.

It took a few more years before I had the strength and the opportunity to take a hatchet to those tangles that had grown bloody thorns, trying desperately to hold me down.

Every strand that snapped was like a deep inhale, a shiver in my soul as the darkness receded. I hacked and hacked and hacked. My mind screaming for release. The final piece gave way in 1993, and I was free.

But the evidence remained.

There are scars tattooed on my heart, the battleground for the final stand. My wrist, my neck, decorated with the shadows of my past self. The one trapped. The one left to figure out how to escape. How to heal. How to move on.

I wish I could say that those strands never found a way to ensnare me again. That my armor was flawless, but they did. They took other forms, other names, used different tactics. Left more scars. Yet none held me captive for as long.

Because I learned. I adapted.

The year is 2025. While my skin may still be an ugly map of suffering, of hurt and neglect, it's also a journal of survival. And all of it is me.