Being afraid

My earliest years were spent being very much afraid, mostly of my mother.
I remember being put in my room, none too gently and having the door click shut. It really wasn't much safer in the room, than out. If I made noise, she'd come flying back in with angry lips and flying hands. Mostly, I sat in silence, frozen, paralytic fear, afraid my breathing might too loud, or my feet might accidentally scuff on the floor.
 I'd listen to her and my brother eating, reading, playing games. I was confused, trying to figure out what they were doing and why they were there and I was in the room. Kinda reminds me of how I've felt all my life....separated by a wall, wanting to join but not being able to. I was surrounded by barriers, real and invisible. Never able to fit in anywhere but alone in my room. Comfortable yet uncomfortable. Conundrum and dichotomy my given names....two words I'm so intimately attached to.
 Of course, any small child, left alone in a locked room, for hours at a time, will find ways to amuse herself. Silently, within, forbidden to whisper or breathe too loud, she turns within.


  I remember what fear feels like physically...it's like wearing a quivering, shaking vest that you can't take off. Trying so hard not to move a single bit. Frozen child, ice poppy, the water balloon that neither tosses nor rolls, just sits, trembling, waiting for the water to slowly leak, ebb away.
 Didn't want to be there. Didn't understand why I was even breathing.mfelt the lostness, heavy heavy unwanted and scorned...Now, this is what dissociation looks like....she would fall backwards in to the darkness within...to save herself. It's kinda like half-dying. But it was better than living with the neglect, hate and the stinging,grabbing hands. Better than the laughter...damn, laughter stings and bites. I was the butt of the jokes. Never understood their sinister smiles. Their smiles were never real. Always fake, poorly made plaster casts that would fall off at a moments notice,when company left or when I'd be alone with her.
 Oh, I inhaled and bought in to every venomous word that viper uttered. Kids do that. It's inherent. I'm not really myself, never have been. I'm all the toxic poison my mom constantly spewed.
I don't know how to find out what I am underneath it all.
I sit alone
In the alley
Watching the empty can
Breathe