Just a child, cold with no home, sleeping in the wild,
dressed in clothes that I had outgrown.
Like one of those commercials for disadvantaged
kids, the ones that ask you to donate just a dollar to
help them escape from what that man did.
We didn’t even beg for money but when there’s a
child, every elderly couple would ask if I was okay
honey? Which was followed by 5 for a feed, this is
what I wanted and really did need, but mother dearest
was a fiend.
We would watch the other sleep, taking different shifts
but still someone ended up stealing all our shit.
Quite frankly I would say it’s unbelievable that
someone would steal from a mother and child but
maybe we do live in a world filled with the vile minded.
I could tell endless stories about being a child
sleeping on concrete but some are ones you just
couldn’t believe, or perhaps I don’t remember, but my
doctor says that’s for the better because our brains
are at times inclined to protect us from pain by
basically driving us insane. Erasing the past and
unwilling to write a future, just like when the DHS said
you’re nearly 16, there’s not much we can do for you.
Mind you, I’m not hung up on the past, I’m angry with
it. I feel so much shame whilst knowing I’m not the
only one to blame but also perplexed by the fact that
trauma rewired my brain, the doctors said I’d never be
the same.
See I was raised by people who weren’t allowed to
have kids, I was taken by the government and told it
was the safest thing to do, so they did.
I waited 2 hours for a worker to collect me and 7
something years for them to respect me when their
whole job was to protect me.
Reunified time and time again, I must have the record
for most unreliable kin. It went alright in the courtroom
though, at least the judge wouldn’t let the cycle win,
but when I was 13, my mother learnt what a voluntary
order did.
How many times is too many times to sign away your
kid?
I used to think that every house was a home but I
soon came to learn that a room is a room and love
does not come from four walls and a hole in the door.
I also used to think that a person could
provide that comfort of home, but soon learned that it
doesn’t work that way due to the fact that no one ever
seemed to stay.
Hundreds of sleepless nights holding my knees to my
chest, questioning why my body and brain could
never be the same or why I would cry if I looked
into my own eyes or why I couldn’t find anyone to
fucking blame.
So now my memories are filed away in cabinets of 3:
things that made me happy, things that made me sad
and things that made me, me.
But the nightmares came back and they poison my
dreams.
How could I let someone who ‘loved’ me be so vile
and mean?
Why do I blame myself for my mother not loving me?
How do I say that I know what I deserve, when I treat
myself like trash on the curb?
Healing is a never-ending journey, something you
work towards, not just a verb.
Because a gentle whisper that all is and will be okay
is what my inner child craves. I wouldn’t even receive
praise when I was well behaved, straight A’s with 1
C, so I was told I would have to try harder to get any
type of degree.
What would’ve happened if someone believed in me?
Well, fuck their assumptions because at 21 I’m making
a grand in a week.
I want other young people to know that we can make
it past 16 or 18 and have so many things they are able to achieve.
You should never measure your success by
comparing yourself to others, the objects they
possess or how you are perceived.
I am not my experiences and my experiences are not
me. They contribute to my character and if you heard
about my challenges without the story of how I started
to succeed, don’t ever think that you know any part of
me.
In comparison to others my age, I’m doing great, and
that is an idea I’ve come to question and also hate.
The perception of my success is drawn from my
experiences of trauma and neglect, combined with the
fact that I live and breathe for those kids that we still
need to protect.
So, when you say I’ve done so well, I can’t quite tell what you see.
What have I achieved by not giving up on children who grew up like me?
