#december 28 2022 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

damien-mlm · 2 years ago

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if you asked them, they'd deny it all

DEAD DOVE, DO NOT EAT

HEAVY VENT, talking about some of my past mentions of child abuse, CSA, suicide and self harm I cannot stress this enough, do NOT read if you feel like you can't I will never hold it against you if you don't read this, I promise I just really need to get this out there

Not fiction, real life events

Let me preface this with the fact I've been trying to open up about myself, and I'm drunk at the moment

This is hideous, this is your last warning

Fuck, how should I even begin

There’s so much

Back in August, I first started to write out fiction as a coping mechanism

Making up angsty and gut-wrenching stories, putting my characters through hell

I put a little bit of me in each one of those

And I still haven’t told the whole story yet

Back then, I also said this

And it still stands

I’m tired of being tired

And I was almost gone in September

Only a handful of people know this, not even my parents know

Not that they would care enough to help, anyway

I’ve been on the edge of this cliff many times

Each time I was pulled away, either forcefully, or by sweet words that meant nothing in the end

Performative kindness, only meant to be seen by others, never to be actually executed when truly needed

I’m not worth their kindness, I never was

My whole existence was a whim

My mother wanted to get showered in praise and attention

My father wanted to prove himself as a man

That was it, that’s all they wanted

I was just a byproduct of it

And when it wasn’t what they thought it would be, they hated me for it

I had ruined their lives by existing, and they made sure I knew

What fucks me up the most is that, thanks to PTSD and C-PTSD, I barely remember anything

I just have bits and pieces, and they are all a fucking nightmare

It’s impossible for me to form a timeline of the events, it’s all jumbled and mixed together

In the two poems I wrote, I mentioned this

I wasn’t lying

And it fucks me up because I feel like I can’t even trust myself

The typical “Are you sure that’s how it happened?” “I don’t remember it like that” “Maybe you are misremembering things” get so much more painful because of this

No, I’m not sure

I don’t know anything

My life is a lie

But then, where do all the nightmares, all the flashbacks, come from?

Where do the scars come from?

Where does that involuntary fear response to their presence come from?

I’m so sorry

I dragged you all into this bullshit

I’m not special

I know I’m not the only one who’s suffering

I feel like I’m being selfish

I shouldn’t be here

I should’ve died back when I first tried to

13 years ago

That should’ve been it

So that nobody else had to witness this fucking wreck

I don’t even know why I’m around anymore

I said it was so that nobody would hurt over my departure, and that still stands

But maybe there’s something else?

I’m not sure if it’s spite, or hope

And I’m still afraid of actually telling what I do remember

I don’t want pity

I want understanding

I want to be loved and cared for

For who I am

For what I am

Not for who I was supposed to be

Not for what I was supposed to accomplish

To be loved for me

For being

I’ve been writing this for about an hour, and I've barely said anything at all

Don’t be scared now, I’m not ending myself tonight, I know I sound extremely ominous, but I promise you I won’t do that

I always say it’s a long story and I never actually tell it

I did mention I came to be as a whim

That wasn’t a lie

What’s baffling to me is how long it took me to actually find out

December 25th, 2018

I got to know the true reason why my parents had split up

I was 1 year old, so I had no notion of this, thank fucking god

But apparently, my mom couldn’t stand the fact my dad gave me, a baby who needed help to survive, more attention than her

So, she asked for a divorce and kept me

It sounds fucking ridiculous, I know

And I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t me

But I am me, and I know how much she loathed me for years

I just never knew why

Turns out it was just for being a human with needs

It made so much sense to me

And to my dad, well I ruined his marriage, I was the reason why the love of his life had left him

And he might deny it, but I know he still resents me for it

Everything about him tells me he does

Both of them placed the blame on me

Not only for this but for everything that came after it

It’s all my fault, my doing, my mistake

When my other relatives would whisper about them, it was my fault

I wasn’t a good kid

I cried too much, I was too loud

I was too dramatic

I was too much

And now I’m not enough

And I don’t think I’ll ever be

It’s hard to talk about this when it’s all mixed up

Most of it is gone

But I remember a few things

I remember my mom accidentally burning my arms with her cigs too many times for it to be accidental at all

At one point, I just stopped trying to get close to her

I remember my dad making fun of the way I cried, calling me a Disney princess in the way I sobbed as a kid

I remember this was in front of other adults too, whenever I went to him for comfort

I remember I grabbed a knife and slashed my bedsheets once; I was too small, and I didn’t know how to express my own anguish

And my mom made me sew it back up and use it still

I remember I moved the living room chairs to make a bed for my plush dog as a kid

And my mom woke up from her nap and was enraged by the mess I had done

She slapped me so hard I fell back, turning, and hit my head on the edge of the wall

I had a huge bruised bump on my forehead

“If anybody asks, you tripped” she said

She must have learned that from one of her boyfriends, and I know exactly which one

This man was so vile, I hope I never have to see his face in front of mine again

Because I’m still forced to see him now and then

Flashbacks are involuntary, after all

He was abusive towards us both

That sick piece of shit

He took my innocence away from me

Stole it away for reasons I still can’t understand

I’m sorry to be so crude about it

But there are certain positions I just cannot do

They just take me back to that moment

“There’s a big man behind me, doing this to me

And there is nothing I can do to stop him”

It is the best way I can describe it without actually saying it

First time I tried to tell my mom about this, she said

“Yeah, maybe”

That’s all

I mean, what did I even expect?

I can’t place dates, but I’m pretty sure all this happened between the ages of 7 and 10

I started hurting myself at 11, back then I was convinced I deserved the pain

I was a bad kid

I deserved it

I got found out at 12 and everything went to shit, as if it wasn’t enough already

I got sent to a psychiatrist, and the lad said I needed anti-depressants

My mother refused

She had a better idea

To avoid me cutting myself, she would strip every single ounce of privacy I had

No room I was in was to have its door closed

No, not even the bathroom

Specially the bathroom

She would stand on the doorway and watch me intently as I did what I had to do

And when I showered, the curtain had to remain open too

That’s not all, but it’s all I can say for now

I don’t have the strength to keep writing right now

I won’t be sleeping tonight; I opened a bottle of wine and I have to clean this fucking house before it’s too late

My dad will come over tomorrow around noon to check on my progress, he said so on a voice message

I wish I wasn’t here

I wish I wasn’t

#tw self harm #tw suicide #tw child abuse #tw csa #tw vent #december 28 2022

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dmwrites · 2 years ago

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Here is another older-ish short story I wrote about two years ago (well, part of it, because it’s a lot longer then i thought it was). It’s called Town of the Dead. Enjoy:)

I am told that there are rumors about the town in the middle of the desert. They say that it’s a ghost town, which in itself is not so unusual for the middle of North America, but it’s not like any ghost town you’ve seen before.

“It’s empty.” The bartender leaned forward, practically whispering. “But there’s a big concrete wall that surrounds the whole place- no one knows why a ghost town needs a wall. I’ve been to it- high as trees, and all wrapped up in barbed wire. It’s dead silent, for the most part.”

I knew a verbal cue when I heard it, so I asked the obvious, trying my best to sound taken aback. “What do you mean ‘for the most part’?”

The bartender looked all around him, as if looking for eavesdroppers. The one other person, sitting at a table by themselves on the other side of the room, didn’t look much for eavesdropping, as they had taken out their hearing aids, so the bartender continued, giving me a look of shared secrecy. “Well, they say that there is one living man there. He’s been seen by several of the folks around here, wearing dark, heavy clothes and a gas mask. Scary as hell, like a twisted version of the grim reaper. No one knows why he is there, or if he is actually alive. But, sometimes, if you look through the holes in the wall, maybe you can see him too.” The bartender pulled back slightly, impressed, it seemed, by his own story. He left me, I assumed, to think, and took a pitcher of beer over to the man at the table.

I had been coming to this bar for several years now, and this was the first time that anyone had ever mentioned The Town of the Dead. I had figured that people just assumed it was some kind of government property. But, I countered with myself, it’s pretty boring here in Witness. Those with a lot of time to kill are bound to search out the most elusive part of the area. I guess it just surprised me how much of a town legend The Town of the Dead was.

“Another margarita for you, girl?”

The bartender was back, and watching me with the satisfied smile of someone who had captivated an audience. “No, I’m good. I have to drive back home anyhow.” I told him, sliding a couple of bucks across the table at him. He took them up and wished me a good evening. I knew he was dying to ask me questions about my name, where I lived, what my job was. But my lackluster answers over the years had beaten him into submission, into simply calling me “girl”. I didn’t need him, the main source of town gossip, knowing any more about me then my drink order.

I hopped on my motorcycle and drove off down the street. It was quiet, which was usual for a Wednesday night. Only the desperate and the dreamers are out on Wednesday nights, which left the roads open wide. I went to the edge of town, and stopped for a moment, admiring the moon overlooking the desert. Even after living around the area for years, it was still beautiful to look at the vast emptiness- a sea of sand.

The ride back to the gates was silent and still- people tend to avoid the sandy outskirts of town and beyond after nightfall. After all, I thought to myself with a smile, there’s that grim reaper man with the scary gas mask for a face. I pulled the gas mask out of the bag hanging off the side of my motorcycle and affixed it over my face. I had to start being more careful- I hadn’t realized that people had seen me walking around. Damn the mask and its limited field of view.

The gate opened as it sensed my arrival- there was a slight tingle that went through my body as the chip embedded in my chest interacted with the sensor in the gate. It closed close behind me, and I turned off the motorcycle, leading it over to the nearby tree. If the streets of the neighboring town were quiet, my town was silent. It still unnerved me, sometimes, when it was late at night and I had been drinking, to walk down the streets for a town that would never hear me.

My house was right in the middle of the town, where a governor would live. It wasn’t much- it was dwarfed by the buildings around it. I made my way inside, closing and locking the door behind me. Here, I was safe from, apparently, the prying eyes of the neighboring townspeople. I took my gas mask off again, rubbing the indents the mask made that were now tattooed into my face. It was very strange to hear about yourself from an outsider’s point of view. Being alone so much, forced into silence and secrecy, really altered my perception of myself, and any change to that was jarring.

“No matter.” I told myself. “Tomorrow’s another day.” I went to bed, and was asleep within seconds.

At this point, I didn’t need an alarm clock to wake up on time. My eyes opened at six in the morning, on the dot. My mornings were rigid, government mandated. I pulled on the heavy clothes, the ones that, apparently, I remembered with a smile, made me look like a grim reaper. I attached the toolbelt around my waist, and finally, right before I opened the door, on came the gas mask. The sun was a hard beam of light coming up over the horizon; we were only two things up so early, greeting one another before moving onto the track neither one of us had strayed from for what seemed like an eternity.

I liked to start at the outskirts of town, and work my way in, towards my own house. My favorite house was there, the Whitesell’s. A sweet cottage, with a mural painted onto the picket fence boards, supposedly done by Ms. Whitesell. I opened up the gate, listening for any squeaks. The lawn was pristine, except for a small bump where one of the edges had come up. I pushed it back down with my foot, so it was seamless once again. Opening the front door, I called out.

“Good morning Mr. and Ms. Whitesell!”

Stepping further into the cottage, making sure to take off my shoes as to not trek sand and artificial dirt in, I peered around the corner into the living room. Ms. Whitesell rested on the couch, knitting slack in her hand. Mr. Whitesell sat in his armchair, a toolset scattered around him, loose parts strewn on the end table. One of his eyes was protruding slightly out of the socket as he leaned over his project, gravity trying it’s hardest to take it from him. I walked over and with my thankfully gloved hand, pushed the eye back into place. In the kitchen, I turned on the facet to make sure the water was running. Upstairs, I smoothed the quilt on the bed, even though it was already made. I checked the clock- seven. I gazed up at the lights, and seconds later the whole house lit up. Time for the Whitesell’s to start their day. I trekked back downstairs.

My hand on the front door, I called out to the living room once again. “Have a nice day, Mr. and Ms. Whitesell! See you tomorrow!” There was no answer. If there had been, I would have screamed. At least it would be a change from the monotony, I supposed to myself with a smile as I walked down the street, onto the next house.

Every house visit was basically the same. Walk in, greet the residents. Make sure the water, electricity, and lights work. Make sure the residents are in mint condition. Make sure to say goodbye before leaving. Then onto the next house, whether it be a mansion or a messy bungalow. The buildings themselves were uniquely fascinating, if you hadn’t been walking in and out of them every day for over a decade. The only thing that linked them together was the rich dead people inside. So scared of death, so scared of being forgotten in a world that vehemently wishes for their demise, that they had themselves, and their house, embalmed and made to last forever. Their daily routines, down to the time they woke up in the morning, immortalized in their own house, a cycle of never-ending normalcy. I wondered, in the vague way that crossed my mind every once in a while, as I walked back to my house, what would happen if I just opened the gate and let all of the residents of Witness come in and see the disgusting displays of wealth.

The bartender’s story came back to me along with my musings. I looked around nervously, even though I was surrounded only by the huge houses. The wall that marked the end of the town of the dead and the start of Witness was far on the outskirts, a place I walked by every day, but, like most things here, had simply faded into the background of everyday life. An alert beeping from my chest startled me, and I hurried back inside my own house. If I didn’t report the morning’s events within a certain time, the chip in my chest would send word to my superiors, and then there would be real trouble.

Typing out the few maintenances I had done today, my mind drifted back to the holes in the wall, to the townspeople who pressed their noses against it to see the enshrouded figure walk by, not realizing that I drove by their houses at night. It hadn’t occurred to me that I was essentially Witness’s local cyprid, but now I couldn’t unsee it. I hit submit, and the beeping in my chest instantly quieted. I sat back in my chair, absentmindedly pushing at the chip under my skin, right between my breasts. It didn’t hurt anymore, not like it did when they had put it in. A reminder that I was owned, by both the government that employed me and the rich corpses that I watched over.

My afternoons were usually spent doing whatever leisure activities struck my fancy at the time. I had a few half-finished paintings lying around, and a book I had meant to start. But the walls were all that went through my mind now. I hadn’t even known there were holes in the concrete. I pulled back on my heavy black clothes and the gas mask- I had to know, had to see for myself. It was a warm afternoon, and sweat broke out almost at once as I set out for the wall- there was good reason, I ruefully reminded myself, that I did all of my chores before the desert heat took over. But I kept on walking, hoping that there would be something so the trip would be worth it.

Walking along the perimeter of the wall, which I never did, I could see a few tiny holes, but they all pointed at the backs of houses. But after a while, I looked ahead to see a bigger indent. And there were voices. I ducked to the side of the nearest house to get a better look. This hole was about the size of my thigh, and it looked right at a street junction. I walked along that road every single day- how had I never noticed the hole before? From where I stood, I couldn’t see if anyone was looking in, but I could still hear the conversation going on right behind it.

“Do you really think that someone lives here?” A girl’s voice, shining with anxiety, suddenly spoke up. “This is government property, Alex. I don’t want to get in trouble, and if they see us…”

“Nah, the government doesn’t care if a couple of us are around.” A boy’s voice responded, sounding overly mature and confident.

“I don’t know why you still insist on coming here.” muttered another boy. “You know this place is abandoned, right? The masked man is just a myth used to keep everyone away. No one lives here, don’t worry. Anyone who says they have seen it just want attention.”

“That’s not what you said when we saw him two months ago, Hunic.” Alex said shortly, after a moment of silence.

“I just imagined it, is all. The masked man isn’t real, Alex. The thing we saw there was just a figment of our imagination.” Hunic didn’t sound too sure about his own statement.

“What is the masked man all about anyway?” the girl piped up. “Like, what’s the story behind it?”

“Well,” Alex said with exaggerated venom, probably looking angrily at Hunic, “the story goes that about fifty years ago, some government officials randomly came here and bought out the desert here. The homeless community that lived here was kicked out, and a giant concrete wall was built around the whole area. No one could see in, and it was heavily guarded. And then, just as abruptly as it all started, it all stopped. The government officials and construction workers left. This is all anyone’s ever seen of the place since then. The edge of two houses, and a street. And it’s been this way ever since. Houses, but they’re dead silent.”

“But what about the masked man?” the girl asked again. She clearly hadn’t wanted a history lesson.

Alex was in his element. He gave an important huff, and continued. “Ah, the masked man. That’s the weirdest part. All we know for certain is that if you stand here in the early hours of the morning or late at night, you might catch sight of a huge man, dressed all in heavy, military-grade clothing, walking down the street. He’s in all black, and his face is covered in a gas mask. No one really knows why he is there. But sightings of him have been recorded basically ever since the government abruptly left the area.”

The girl gasped. “What if the masked man is like a ghost or something, and the government left because it was so haunted?”

“That’s a theory some people have.” Alex admitted. “Others say he’s the security guard to guard whatever is inside of these walls. Or the grim reaper.”

“And others say that he isn’t a real thing at all, just another fearmongering tactic to keep us from going in there.” Hunic spoke up again, cranky. “We make this big deal about a walled-off area owned by the government, when there’s probably just oil under the ground. Let’s get out of here. We’re gonna be late for dinner.”

The three walked away, the sounds of their shoes in the sand gradually fading into nothingness, replaced with the lazy whistling of the afternoon wind. I sagged against the side of the house, not realizing that I had been leaning forward, as if the words themselves had pulled me closer. I stayed still for a moment, the hot air bleeding into my clothes until I could hardly breathe. Then I stole away, back to my house, to organize my thoughts.

It was so weird to hear about myself from people who didn’t even know if I was real or not. I essentially had folk tales talked about me, and here I was just doing my job. Not a big, scary masked man, but just some girl going through her daily tasks. Sure, the town itself was a mystery to everyone but the handful of government workers who knew what really lay within the houses, but the speculation that apparently plagued the townspeople was wild. A ghost? The grim reaper?

#December 28 2022 #personal #okay tbh I’m reading some of my old stuff rn and it’s all gotta be from like two or three years ago and I think I’ve improved?#bc I have the ick looking at it rn help #/lh

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