SUNDRIP – Art for Life

Content – Physical sbuse with some details. Sexual abuse. No details.

I suddenly put 2 significant memories with the memory of the abuse of K. What does it all mean now?

My mother used to giggle as she told us the story of our pet dog trying to bite her every time she’d whip my sister. My mother told us the story around the second grade. I know where I lived so I know what grade I was in.

My mother thought it was funny that, before I was born, she tried to whip my sister but the little dog kept trying to bite her. That particular day she was angry. She picked my sister up and threw her against the wall.

I wasn’t born yet. This puts my sister under the age of three. My mother told this story many times. She said she didn’t like to whip us if she was angry bc she knows what she’s capable of, throwing against a wall.

My mother used a dowel rod to beat my sister before throwing her against the wall. A dowel rod was used on little K as well.

A lot of dots were connected even though I wasn’t looking for them to.

I’ve spoken a few times about how my mother beat me after my older cousin touched me. No one stopped him. I just got in trouble when he was finished. She said I let him do it. I was three.

I was three when she held me down with one hand and beat me with a dowel rod in the other. She was pressing so hard on my body. My face was buried in the bed. It was pitch black but I could see a bright light. I couldn’t see past the light but I remember making every effort to not go near it.

Afterwards, my entire body hurt so badly I didn’t know what to do. I was stunned. Every inch of my body was on fire, some of my skin was hot and itchy. I hurt deep in my body, not just the skin. It hurt to touch me.

Something else was different. When she hit me I tried to run away (in my head) into the matress but I couldn’t. But I remember watching my mother from the corner of the room. I remember watching my yellow pajamas, seeing her one hand hold me down and the other beat the life out of me because I “let” my cousin touch me.

All three kids held down around age three and beaten like that. I know for a fact that I was 3 when beaten for being touched. K was beaten at 3 for touching himself. I don’t know what my sisters crime was before I was born, no more than three years old.

Masterbation made her furious. She watched in the dark hallway with her trench coat and hood on, to see if my sister or if I were masterbating. She wanted to know if we were touching each other. When I was in the 4th grade she insisted my sister and I took sexual photos together. The entire time living with her, including briefly living with her my senior year, she watched me shower and relentlessly asked if I was masterbating.

A weapon of my own.

In middle school I discovered my great grandfather’s name. He was legendary for the wrong reasons. I hear his own dogs hid when it was time for him to come home. He was wicked. We’ll, one day we were all talking about family and stuff so I asked a question and dropped his name. My mother’s blood drained. She was afraid, visibly shaken, something she didn’t recover from quickly. I knew I’d just stepped into important information.

The following is conjecture –

Over the years when I was told about my family line, his name was skipped. I’d say, what about X? I only did it to shock. But now I wonder what he did that was so bad that the dogs were afraid of him?

Did he touch my mother sexually? Did he hold my mother’s three year old body down and beat her with his leather belt until nothing in her world would ever be the same?

When I was young and my mother beat me that day, my aunt was at home but she didn’t help me. Who helped my sister or K? No one helped my mother, I’m sure of that.

Did my mother lay there stunned? Was she red, itchy, skin tight, hot, swollen? Could she process the pain? Could she see through the fog?

After my mother beat me that day I then turned around and slept next to her in her bed. The last time K was beaten with a dowel rod so viciously he slept next to my mother in her bed. I bet it’s true for my sister, too.

I said my mother is deserving of pity. I’d love to know what was deep in her heart when she laid next to three bodies, at different times, that she herself ravaged? I don’t think she felt responsible for the horror. I think she felt justified.

As a toddler we’d been touched or touched ourselves. But why was it met with violence, with barbarism? Why did my great grandfather’s name make her flustered and shake? His name was the only weapon I had. I was intrigued watching her continuance melt from cocky to a stuttering, fearful, child.

Yeah, his name, it felt like that was all I had to fight with.

Faith