need a new sim card

Sometimes when I’m with my dad, he tells me things. Things that I cannot say for certain are true because their relationship has tainted everything. These are things that I wish weren’t true… things that I wish he would stop telling me. But I let him talk and cry and I just hug him because he’s my dad and I really pity him. He sees this in my face and tells me, “Stop feeling sorry for me.” And I can’t stop feeling sorry for him, for myself, for my sister.

Tired of her husband, my mother pushed away everything that reminded her of him. I never realized until it happened that children had to be the first to go.

Sometimes I resent her for it, sometimes I don’t. But this is what I was dealt with and I have to accept it.

Recently I have been waking up to text messages from unregistered numbers asking me to forgive the sender.
I think I'll be buying myself a new sim card when I find some free time.

I don't think I'll be posting anymore after this. I'm tired of thinking about it. It's behind me. I'm about to graduate, and it's almost Christmas. I can barely call that woman my mother.

Life goes on.

Brown Boxes

I graduated from high school as one of those kids that represented their school well. As I received medal after medal on stage, my mother stood next to me crying while mumbling how proud she was to be my mother. This was her moment, not mine.

A few weeks later she packed my father’s clothes while he was away on a business trip, placed them in 3 large brown boxes and dumped them in front of his office building with his name on it. When I found out and questioned her reasons, I found everything that once filled up my bedroom in a few brown boxes outside of our house.

There was no need to put my name on them.

3 years, 4 months, 17 days

In June 2006, I received a chilling text message from my little sister. 3 days before her birthday I found my 12 year old sister in her pajamas at 11 PM by a Total gas station on Vito Cruz crying. Around her were her stuffed toys, bedroom slippers and clothes stuffed into plastic bags.

My mother had run out of brown boxes.

It’s been 3 years since I last said anything to her. I have seen her, I have even received her calls and text messages (The angry ones and the ones that begged me to forgive her) and yet I have yet so share a single word with her.

Since then I haven’t allowed myself to become too close to anyone. Call it what you want. Fear of being hurt, fear of commitment, whatever. But for me, it’s like my security blanket. If people don’t get close enough, they won’t ever get to hurt you. That’s that.

Atonement? I think not.

Sorry about that. I forgot to update because school was getting hectic. Anyway. Not that anyone reads this.

I turned 17 almost forgetting what my mother looked like, since it had been nearly 2 years since the Christmas morning she had packed all her clothes, thrown it in the back of her car and drove away with Don Moen blaring over the radio. I called up my father and he quickly came over and brought me and my sister to his house.

It took me three years to forget how cold my mother’s voice actually was. She called me up one Sunday afternoon, asking me to forgive her and welcome her back home. In tears, I dropped the phone on her. After a few days she was back home, unpacking.

Cheap drinks cheap thrills cheap guy

My mother took us to live with her and her boyfriend in some poorly maintained townhouse. It didn’t take me long to learn that her boyfriend was an alcoholic. I found him sitting in the living room late at night, without any lights on, already drunk and drinking cheap vodka. Once he was drunk and beat me because I didn't want to call him dad. For fun, he wanted to show my little sister how strong he was and he broke her hands. My mother didn’t say a thing and no one was around to protect us.

i don't know why i did it.

The judge asked me who I wanted to stay with. Even though my younger sister wanted to stay with my dad, I felt pressured to stay with my mom because I felt bad for her. I told the judge I wanted to stay with my mom, and my sister had to go with me. After my mom had “won” the hearing, she celebrated in the lunchroom of the courthouse with her boyfriend, the lawyer, and me and my sister. My sister and I could only feel guilty about leaving my dad with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Separation

I was around 12 or 13 when my parents got separated. I remember staying up late waiting for my mom to get home from work but she wouldn't be there next morning. I knew then something was wrong and my dad wasn't feeling so thrilled about it either. He confronted my mom and we sort of “knew” there was a third party involved, but she kept denying it. I can recall them fighting a lot and eventually my mom decided it was best for her to leave the house. So she did.

mayhem!

Every night my parents would be shouting at each other inside their room. It was useless of course. The whole house, hell even the neighbors, could hear them screaming their heads off.

I used to bring my sister inside my room when the fighting started. I would turn on the TV or boom box and play it real loud to drown out the screaming. That time I thought I was fooling my sister. She would just sit in front of the TV and keep quiet. Now I know that she were aware of everything.

god I hated her hypocrisy

At the age of 7, I decided to be Wednesday Addams for Halloween; my father took me to get a costume made. We were both pretty excited; and as soon as we got home, we went straight up to my mom and shared our excitement. She turned to my dad and started to yell about how all the details of my stupid costume were not ironed out, and how we had no concrete plans of trick or treat. Then it evolved to other stupid things, and I watched, wide eyed in shock, as the fight degraded to a name calling shouting match.

By the time I was 10, I had been force fed spoonfuls of dried chilies, I had spent a few afternoons locked in a closet and I was slowly learning to put on my thickest trousers whenever my mother began to pull out the brown cowboy belt that hung from my father’s closet. As a church elder however, she always reminded the young mothers that there was never a need spank a child.

hello, world.

Hi. So this is what it’s like to own a blog.

I’m not really a blog person, but my therapist told me I should have some kind of…channel to let out all my stress and to write about my messed up family. I have to recall when things went out of whack and go from there. Like I have to process it in my head, the things I remember, the things I felt, stuff like that. He said it would be cathartic. Whatever that means.

To start with, this is a poem I wrote for my mom about a year back.

For Mom:
White-washed walls are not as white
Once memories have taken flight
Yet the scent of endless yesterday
Remains beside the place I lay.

Beyond these windows, the wells are dry
Nothing for this bitter lullaby
I turn my head and bottle my sighs
I must, I must believe in lies.

Do I recognize this hand of fate?
Will salvation come too late?
It plagues me that I know it not
I cannot win a war unfought.

And so I invoke thee
Come and justify me
Deal me a different card today
Dress me up and take me away.

Leave sweetness where words have failed
Return me where my soul once hailed
For when this light twists into grey
I might as well just fade away.