Florida Grown,

Someone caught my 'handy' work,

The Watch

Bella.

 If only we could merge as one. If only one was more assertive and the other less. There are no middles to the high and low. There is only silence. Allowing my thoughts to be hidden, conversation minimal, needs undefinable and unsatisfied. I've been breed to survive and the biggest lie is I can live any other way.

 My time for you is endless, my effort never exhausted. You tell me. You hint to me. I will be there. I will stand with you, for you. I will be all that you need. Come to me when you are sick and I will comfort you until your last breath. You are my brothers. You are my sisters. I am so incredibly endlessly undefinable proud of you. Thank you for being my family. Thank you for showing me the way. Thank you. For your life, for your service.

Baby Bella,

I remember when you saved me. There’s been multiple occasions so I know it’s hard sometimes. Being thrown around by such a large man and having no control over my situation. Her strong courageous act of raising her voice with no fear of consequence saved me. I whole heartedly believe It would have gotten worse. Sitting in the pieces of a shattered mirror with a man 3 times your height and weight yelling how worthless you are Left me with nothing. I was ready for the sweet embrace of death. In 2007 I was in 7th grade l, a simple sentence was written in my French notebook. My dads mad at me and I don’t know why. It started like walking into water. A few rushing waves of sly remarks. Testing the water. Getting his feet wet. It’s been a year now, the summer of 2008. I knew the face by now. The face that said wait until your mother leaves. The look that made my stomach turn and told everything in my body to run. To hide. To get away from this man at any cost. It was early morning and by the judge of yesterday I knew today he was not happy. I knew I needed to be somewhere anywhere far from him. I stayed up until 5 so I could ask my mother to take me to a friends house who lived down the street from her work. With my bag packed I waited until I only heard her and ran out to ask her to take me with her. As I ran out the door skipping 2 of the 3 steps too make it to her red truck before he caught me. I begged her ‘mom please mom you don’t understand. Please take me with you. Mom please I’ll do anything’ she looked hurt and confused and in shock. She tried to be calm as she told me 'Paula I can’t. I have to go’ at that moment I saw her eyes move to the door and I knew it was all over. As I slowly turned my head I saw him in the door way with the face. I begged I pleaded as if it were for my life. She hollered to him 'what the hell is wrong with her!?’ Which was followed by a statement I’ve heard too many times from his anger filled lips. Drenching with hatred he shouted ’ I don’t know she’s fucking crazy, there’s something wrong with her’. As he started to advance toward me on the sidewalk I ran on the opposite side of the white fence. I rushed into the door down the hall to the closet. I turned off the light and put a pillow over me as I curled in a ball in hopes he would just go to bed. My heart racing, hands shaking. I knew the sound of his foot steps how many steps it took to come down here, how many steps to his room from the front door. If he takes more than 3 steps. Please don’t take more than 3 steps. As I heard the last thunder of the 4th steps I prepared for his worst. The door flung open. The light filled the room as I felt the pull on the bottom of my backpack. I was flung into the cherry red drum set. Once a 'gift’ of 'love’ for my birthday, now a casualty of this war. My body was filled with fear and adrenaline as I tried to scramble away I heard it and knew this was only the beginning. His words fought with my thoughts of escape. 'You worthless piece of shit’ rang down just as my body did as it was thrown against the bookshelf. As I Attempted to crawl under my older sisters bed I was met again with defeat. 'You think anyone cares about you? No ones going to save you’. I grabbed for anything to keep him from pulling me out by my legs. I was yanked and thrown over. Before I could look up to see his face I was met with the stinging that was to familiar. I swore I’d have missing teeth the pain was so bad. 'Where the fuck do you think you’re going you selfish bitch’. I managed to grab the bed and pull myself up in an attempt to craw on the top bunk. I was pulled down as my body slammed the floor and my head rushed with pain, 'you can’t get away from me’. With all that I was I crawled toward the door through his legs. I don’t remember what was said because her voice broke through as I was thrown into the mirror and it shattered around me. 'Stop it! You’re going to kill her’ I saw patience shouting from her bed and everything went dark. To this day I still can’t remember what happened after that. I remember everything so vividly except what happened after patience saved me. I remember awaiting the sweet comfort of death to take me and waking up the next day begging that it would.

I like you and I love you. You make me feel wholesome.

I'd like to think you loved me, love me. I'd like to think I meant everything to you. When I think of you're name I close my eyes as I'm met with swarming tides. There is such a storm it feels like everything and nothing at the same time. You've consumed my thoughts, lingering in every corner of my brain. Starting as a sip of a cool drink and leading to a helpless drowning girl. I just want to see the sun, just a glimpse.

I had a plan. I had a plan to be happy. To take a year. Take some pills. Rewrite my brain to be happy. That is the plan. Was the plan. What a foolish girl I am. I’ve read once that being a fool is the best thing you can be as a girl. My heart feels empty my body feels empty. As I’m only a shell, a lifeless sack of air and flesh, wondering about without any real sense of purpose. When all of the events leading up to this point flood my brain I can’t help but become that lifeless shell. I once had a boy, I didn’t want to fuck him but that’s what he wanted. I was so used to no meaning nothing, I don’t want this, I don’t like this, meant nothing. Maybe that’s why I do what I’m told so easily now. My words feel like they never carry any weight. I’m just a whisper in the wind. No one ever cared what I wanted. I’ve always been an empty shell and That’s what I always go back to. An ignorance for what I’ve seen and what I’ve done to survive. I try to tell myself you’re not a bad person for the ways you tried to kill you’re sadness. It doesn’t work most days. I don’t know how I work most days

“I-I am going to be a storm-a flame- I need to fight whole armies alone; I have ten hearts; I have a hundred arms; I feel too strong to war with mortals- BRING ME GIANTS!” ― Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac.