Demons

The pain is sharp, like a thousand tiny pins pricking the same spot over and over. The bruise my father left on my cheek a few days ago hurts when I touch it, my finger jerks away in betrayal. I sigh, collapsing on my bed, as it cries out underneath me, squeaking and bending to my weight. Although I only weigh a few pounds over a hundred this bed makes me self-conscious. “Dawn!” I slowly ease out of bed, as to make it seem like I wasn’t in it in the first place. My father is calling me, and then the slam of the door that always follows is heard. I hear his voice, that slur it has whenever he comes home drunk after work. Racing down the stairs I almost trip over myself. I slowly creep into the kitchen fearing what he might do to me today. “Yes, dad?” I ask, he always makes me say yes instead of yeah, because it shows some form a respect. Some kind he needs from me. He walks over to me, angry with loud steps and squinty eyes. “Where is my dinner?” He yells in my face, all of his nasty drunk breath blowing over me, spit flying and then he takes a death grip on my hand as he smacks me with the other. He is specifically strong when he is drunk. I keep myself from crying out, years of this helps me do so. “It’s on the table, dad.” I cower. I have no reason to call him that, because he has in only one time I remember ever acted like one to me. “It better be,” He turns around with the gracefulness of a baby just learning to walk, steadying himself with his hand, grasping the table. The few things on the table, he throws off with a simple swing of his hand. The plastic vase with the fake roses in them - only there for hospitality reasons, the paper I left there in hope he would read faithlessly drifts to the floor, the many bills that have stacked up over the weeks, a new eviction notice announcing our three weeks left in this small apartment. “Here it is,” He picks it up, now the only thing left on the table, and walks out of the room. I quickly duck down and pick up my paper. An essay about the life I wish I had. It feels rough in my hands, dirty, lies, and regret for things I know will never come. I don’t even know why I dream anymore. I walk into my tidy, small room, glad it’s over. The hit this time wasn’t as bad as those before but it still hurts just as much. And it’s not only my face that’s in pain, but something deeper. It’s almost like when a little child is spanked - they don’t cry because of the pain, but for the betrayal they feel. They think that since you are their parents you would never hurt them, only tuck them into bed, keep the scary monsters away, and kiss them whenever they leave, even if it’s just for the barest second. Somehow, I know that it isn’t my dad’s fault, I know somehow it isn’t him doing these things. But it still hurts me. I sit down on the bed - all that covers it is a quilt my grandmother gave me before my dad started drinking - and stare at my walls. One is bare and the other completely covered. So much so now that not even a square inch of wall peeks out from beneath the papers on top of it. Newspapers. Hundreds of newspaper clippings cover the pale cream wall. Clippings of births and weddings. I don’t know why I collect them, but I do, and looking at them gives me peace somehow. Knowing that life is still beautiful and goes on - no matter how much I want it to end sometimes - is comforting. And right now, I need that more than ever; because tomorrow is the day I was born fifteen years ago.