My Story Pt3

      I gave you poetry again...I'm not sure how to face the facts because I usually let them fester somewhere near the back of my head, out of sight but always in my actions.
When I was born my mother was already terrified of my father. She said he started hitting her for the first time in her second trimester. Yes, I was "born in a pop." She said she took the beatings because she was scared to fight back while she was pregnant. My mother will lie about most things if asked directly except a wrong done her. I've heard the stories thousands of times and it explains so much of who I am. A fetus feels its mothers emotions, that is scientifically proven. I was beaten to life.
      As soon as she had me, they had an argument in the front yard and he hit her. She picked up a brick and told him his next blow to her would split his head so be sure to aim right. He never hit her again. One thing my mother is, amongst the flaws that complete her, is a vicious fighter. I've seen it and I wouldn't try her on my best day even though I outweigh her and I have her on the reach. They said I scared them when I was a baby because I rarely cried and I only laughed or smiled for one person, neither one of them. My mom says I just stared at people knowingly. When I was so small I could barely talk she came home from work one day and my father and his new girlfriend had packed her things and put them on the front porch. The new girlfriend went on to be his wife and my little sister's mother. My mom moved out with me and we house hopped until she found a small place to herself.
      My grandmother being the collector of children that she was convinced my mother that it was best that she take me away until my mom got on her feet. She didn't know the fight she would have to go through to get me back. By that time I was old enough to remember it myself, the courtroom and how intimidating it was, the fist fights between her and my stepmom, my father's distaste with my presence. She did get me back and I don't know if it was the better situation or if there even was such a thing for me as a child. She drank a lot. She also dated a lot then. One man in particular changed me forever. All I remember was that his name was Richard, that he had a beard and a goatee, he was usually shirtless, and the day I saw him and my mother naked asleep I cried all morning because I thought he had done to her what he had done to me. I was three years old and I didn't know that it was supposed to be pleasurable. I don't even remember much of it except how he taunted me in front of my mom and she just thought he was joking about birthday suits. She didn't know why I didn't like him and told me I was being selfish. She rarely listened to me so I remember thinking she wouldn't care what I said then. After all, she let him do it to her. I stood up for her not for myself. I yelled in my three year old voice and my mother talked to me in her irritated voice. She told me it was okay and explained things in her harsh "I can't deal with you right now voice." So I knew she would never take up for me.
     I remember the day he left and how he looked at me. I remember how many times he tried to come back and how many threats of death she issued him. I remember meeting him again when I was ten and the shame in his eyes and how I didn't understand it then. My therapists called it a surpressed memory. I forgot all about until a couple of years ago. I only remembered the morning I found them and the song that was playing on the radio as I cried my overgrown toddler tears "These Dreams" by Heart. I can't listen to it to this day without crying. When I had my son and he turned two I went insane. We couldn't sit in the living room after sundown. We had to be in my room with the door locked or I would have anxiety attacks. I've always been afraid of people seeing me naked and sleeping with my door open. After my son turned two I had to baracade us behind the door in order to sleep without nightmares. A few months later my mom visited and in one of her drunk confessionals she told me about a night. A night that she went walking around the neighborhood by herself like she did often. She said when she returned his pants were around his ankles and so were mine. She said he claimed he was taking me to the bathroom. She begged oh my God how she begged me to tell her he was taking me to the bathroom. She looked at me like her universe would implode if he wasn't taking me to a bathroom. So I didn't slay her. After all the years I've wanted her to hurt for how she made me feel as a child, I told her I thought he was probably just taking me to the bathroom.