My blood splattered carpet
A true story. Warning: involves child abuse and trauma
sitting at the very bottom.
I’m at the bottom of the street of the sloping curve my sisters and I ride down
With our tricycles, racing with our feet in the air, as we glued our eyes to each other, laughing nervously.
Hoping not to hit a car parked on the side or each other. Hoping to win the race down the street.
Sitting at the bottom near the edge of the grassy field
And holding my bloody nose:
The air is so high in the clouds, it’s not muggy out
It’s dry and hot
And beautiful.
It smells like the end of barbecue, a wafting of sizzling food being put away and the coals being burnt out and kids laughing and
My old friend is just up the street where I used to pop corn and laugh and sleep over at her house.
I taste the metal taste in my mouth, I bite my tongue so I stop feeling numb I’m so dizzy
But it doesn’t really taste like anything
I don’t really see or hear or taste or smell anything
It is all a memory that is whipped like that homemade whipped cream with heavy cream my mom makes for my dad's birthday pumpkin pies because his birthday is so close to Thanksgiving and she makes two pumpkin pies, one for him and one for…
My dad is driving in that truck I recognize and sees me sitting on the road with blood all over and picks me up and the police are all over, hovering the street like bees hover me when I mow the lawn
But don’t sting me because I leave them alone.
I go downstairs and I see my carpet.
It wasn’t like that before and it stays like that for years and years and no one tries to reject it or replace it
And the stain stays when I bring in my friends
Boyfriends
Girlfriends
And then…
The blood stained carpet is there, in my memory, my eyes can plainly see it as if it’s there in front of me.
Maybe it’s the way you were my mom and promised to keep getting new objects to beat me with until that object broke as you went upstairs and down to the basement where I was waiting in blood and tears
But you broke the object you
Broke
Me
And healing one day with Baba
In her front yard making dandelion necklaces
As I tried to remember if I could see the reason why
That huge blood stain on my carpet
Was still there
Waiting
Metal flavored, nice and red, bronze and brushed brown paintbrushed now with golden age, smelling of ash and incense and peppermints
Of loud music
And neverending stories I told everyone
That weren’t true
But I wished were true.
About the Creator
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Autonomy Is The Real Privilege
Good morning, freedom-seekers! Today we’re gonna be looking at autonomy. A strange word, I know; one many would probably look at blankly and run away from on sight. We’re gonna figure out what it actually means, consider how it’s achieved, and decipher just how deeply most of us are tangled up in dependence without realising it.
By That ‘Freedom’ Guy3 days ago in Humans
Comments (3)
And my heart breaks. I'm so sorry about your childhood accident (my brother used to tell us how he & his friends used to race their bikes down St. Anne's Hospital's hill (the street next to where we always went sledding), to see who could go fastest without wiping out as they crossed the railroad tracks. Apparently, he was leading the entire pack as he hit the tracks--which promptly separated him from his bike (I guess he hadn't learned to jerk up on the handlebars right before hitting them yet). Acting every bit like Michael Jordan would years later, he flew through the air with his tongue out wagging through the wind. He tells us that's what hit the ground first, & upon which he slid for the next half a block. (I think he used some hyperbole there, but it's still a fun story.) Not so fun is the realization that the accident simply evokes the memory of what had been endured before. I don't know where there is autobiography involved in your story or not, but my heart grieves for the child who not only had to live through the abuse but also relive it in this way. Agonizingly great story, building from the expectation of harm to its realization, then continuing on one step further to even greater harm.
Thank you for being brave enough to share this with us. One of the worst things about being a survivor of abuse is feeling like you can’t talk about it, because it might make people uncomfortable. So you just carry it inside, and it festers. I love poetry and literature that dares to make certain people uncomfortable. Because those are the people who should be more aware. And the rest of us don’t feel uncomfortable, we feel less alone, which makes us feel more comfortable being here in this world.
I am sorry, you had to go through that. This must have been hard to write, I hope it was healing for you . ❤️