Lost and Found

To The Man Who Stole My Childhood

You know who you are and what you did haunts me almost every day. I often think back to that small and scared little girl that I was. My brain replays the memories in flashbacks. The thoughts constantly haunt me.

I often rock myself back and forth as the images of you almost killing my mother flash before me, making it seem all too real again. When I feel your touch, even though you are no longer touching me, it burns my flesh and into my core. Do you think about the marks you left from the dog collars, the shoes and the belts? Do the thoughts invade your dreams as they invade mine?

Do you remember making my mother choose between me and you? You were the reason I was separated from her for so long and you always made it known you hated me. You didn't like me. You didn't want me. Do you remember when I broke my toe, the way it turned black and purple and blue? Do you remember saying that I was overreacting and refusing to let me go to the hospital? It healed itself and is now crooked, a forever reminder of the pain you caused.

Do you remember how you would call me fat and worthless? Do you remember how you told me that no one would ever love me and I was better off dead? Because of you, because of your words, I used to hate myself. It's why I stopped eating. Do you remember that? When I passed out at school and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance? I cut my head, blood and puke all on the hallway floor, I had a concussion. I couldn't walk and I couldn't remember anything. Do you know that my skin still burns and aches from wanting to drag a blade across it like I used to? I bought into your lies and I wrote out my suicide note. It wasn't until I saw all the blood and felt the pain was too much that I couldn't finish it. I felt weak then but I'm glad I put down the knife.

Do you remember the night that you came into my room? Do you remember what your son did? I don't trust men because of it. You were supposed to love me, to protect me like I was your own. But, I was just your step daughter, something you could throw away when you were tired of playing. 

Did you know it took over three years to be able to eat spaghetti again? Even now, I can still hear you laugh and threaten us that if we cried from washing the pot where maggots were forming from the old spaghetti that we would regret it. We were children. We didn't deserve that.

Do you know that your son would sleep next to me on the nights we could hear you and my mother fighting? As much as I hated him, I knew how he felt. I would tell him it would be okay. He could somehow find solace in that and eventually fall asleep. 

You took ten years of my life. You took all of my childhood. You forced me to grow up before I was ready. It wasn't fair and I hated you for it. However, I am not writing this to tell you that I hate you because I no longer do.

You need to know that I forgive you. Seeing you at the gas station today made me realize that I wasn't angry with you anymore and that I have forgiven you. Even though your touch made me cringe and when you said you loved me, my stomach turned in knots, I did not harbor hate for you.

You stole my childhood. You will not steal my future.