This Is How You Teach a Child to Die Slowly.
"I exist in two places: here, and where you left me." — Margaret Atwood
•
There it goes again.
It starts with a frightening silence.
Then—slam.
"Jesus!" my mother screams, like she's just realized how close she is to actually meeting Him.
We run again.
My brothers dive under the bed. My sister clings to my mom, as though she's thinking "maybe this time, she'd actually go, and I can go with her."
I don't hide anymore. I just listen. Because one day, I'll need to remember every sound to explain why I don't sleep.
There's kerosene in the air tonight. I can smell it.
That awful smell. The kind of smell that doesn't leave, even when the windows are open.
She's soaked in it. Hair, face, arms. Her eyes sting. Her voice cracks.
And the match—that cursed match—won't light.
His hands are too wet.
It should be terrifying—but he's laughing.
Tells me how easy it is to end a life while my mother burns in tears and chemicals in the other room.
And I cry.
For the first time in a short while, I cry.
"Why are you crying?" He stares at me like I've ruined the moment.
"Stop crying." he says.
That was it.
The moment, I wanted to die.
Not from fear. Not from pain.
But because the match didn't light.
And that meant it would happen again tomorrow.
—————
Entry 1:
"They say all parents fight."
I used to believe that too.
Until I realized ours didn't fight—they performed war.
They fractured.
Every night.
Over and over.
Until the walls forgot how to hold a family.
It wasn't just the hitting.
It was the waiting.
The knowing.
The terrifying feeling that curled itself around my every being.
The way footsteps meant choose a room to hide in.
The way I stopped calling out when I was scared because no one came.
Sometimes I'd wonder who started it.
Sometimes I'd try to pick sides.
But after a while, you stop asking who struck the match—
Not when you already believe… it was you.
Because why else would they scream more when I entered the room?
We weren't kids.
We were collateral.
A line drawn. A weapon passed. A reason to stay.
Or leave.
My sister clung to my mother like she was waiting to be gone with her.
My brothers forgot how to dream.
And I—
I just memorized escape routes.
Mom was the rag.
She was patient. Too patient, that it leaves bruises in the shape of loyalty.
Dad was fire in a locked house. Short fuse. We were the things they didn't mean to burn.
Some nights, we were just background noise to the storm.
Other nights, we were the storm.
I became good at silence. At slipping through it, at hiding inside it. My brothers weren't so lucky.
One forgot how to look people in the eye. The other forgot how to read.
And I—
I started seeing the world through everyone's eyes, except mine. Everything felt too sharp or too soft. Nothing in between.
Sometimes I'd stare at the ceiling and wonder what version of me would make them stop. The quiet one? The perfect one? The invisible one?
This was home.
Or what was left of it.
And that was the beginning of forgetting who I was.
•
Entry 2:
"I was born wrong. I believe that's where it started."
They fought mostly when the world was asleep. Maybe they thought silence would hide the bruises better.
The slam always came first.
Not the yelling.
Not the hitting.
Just the slam.
Like the house exhaled in fear before the rest of us could.
Then
My mother's voice, sharp, terrified, would follow, already too late.
We'd run.
Not in a fun way. Not in a childlike way.
No giggles. No thrill.
Just survival.
We'd scatter like insects.
Hiding under beds, behind doors, inside closets.
Anywhere we thought pain couldn't find us.
Sometimes she tried to stop it before it became what it always became.
Her hands on his arms.
A whisper.
My mom, begging him to just let it go.
Like maybe she could hold a storm still.
Please don't do this tonight.
Not again, I'd pray.
She'd hold his wrists like they were grenades.
But the pin was always already pulled.
And then—
violence.
Fast and hungry.
Like flipping a switch that turned our living room into a battlefield.
The hallway became a warpath.
The air turned thick.
And we—children—learned to breathe through fear like second nature.
I learned to measure time by how long the punches lasted.
And how soon my sister would stop shaking.
She never screamed.
Just watched with her big round eyes, wide open.
I noticed something later,
When I came first in class,
Dad smiled.
Not at me.
At himself.
He'd say it was his blood.
So, i studied until my fingers cramped.
Topped every class, aced every test.
For a smile. Gutted myself for peace.
Even if it lasted five minutes.
If it meant I got to fall asleep without the walls shaking.
And still—
nothing changed.
I couldn't fix it.
Not with good grades.
Not with hiding.
Don't feel bad for me.
I thought I deserved it.
I still do, sometimes.
I go back and search for the moment I ruined everything.
Maybe I cried too loud as a baby.
Maybe I was born at the wrong hour.
Maybe I was just… unnecessary.
You think that's dramatic.
But it's not.
When love only exists in the spaces between terror,
you start to believe you were made to be broken.
People say "it wasn't your fault."
But that's just something adults say to children
they've already failed.
This is just the beginning.
The crack before the collapse.
The night before the match.
And I promise—
I haven't even told you the best part yet.
•
ENTRY 3
(It starts before it starts.)
I asked him—
once—
"Promise me you won't touch her again."
He said yes.
He lied.
I let it nest inside me like hope.
I nodded.
I believed him.
I wanted to believe him.
I think he even smiled.
Or maybe I imagined it.
One night.
No, not night.
Something that shouldn't have existed.
I woke up already afraid.
Like the fear had arrived hours before me.
I heard dragging.
A dull, wet sound.
I opened the door.
She had the yellow can.
The one that always smelled like death.
The one that never belonged indoors.
She was holding it tightly.
But he wanted it.
They dragged.
Flesh turned to rope.
She was trying to hold on to something—
Maybe her life.
I don't remember running to my brothers' room,
but I was there.
They were hiding.
One under the bed.
The other by the wall, blinking so slowly it looked like sleep.
But no one was asleep.
Sleep had left this house long ago.
Then she screamed.
I thought the world cracked open.
She stumbled into the room.
Her arms flailed.
A thud.
I checked for what had caused the sound.
It was my mother.
She fell onto the bed—
rolling, gasping.
Rolling like she was on fire, even though the fire hadn't started yet.
But it had already begun.
Inside her eyes.
Inside my ears.
The smell soaked into the air.
Kerosene.
Everywhere.
And then—
the sound of a match being struck.
Again.
Again.
Again.
He tried to lit the match.
But it wouldn't light.
God didn't let it light.
Why didn't he let it light?
The match was wet.
He laughed.
Laughed like he'd just won something.
He took me by the arm.
Into the sitting room like a spectator.
I didn't struggle.
I was a mannequin, and he was the display.
He spoke to me as if this were comedy.
A story to amuse us both.
"I'll kill her," he said.
"You'll see."
He smiled at me.
He looked straight into my eyes.
He said it with pride.
Like a man describing a trophy hunt.
I watched his mouth move
but all I could hear was screaming.
Not hers.
Mine.
From inside my ribs.
At that moment
Something broke.
Cracked and spilled.
Something inside me...
And I cried.
"Stop crying." His voice went cold, like ice snapping.
But I didn't stop.
I remember thinking:
He's not my father.
He's wearing my father's face,
but something else is inside.
I didn't stop crying.
I didn't care anymore.
That was the night, I didn't want to live anymore.
After that,
I stood between them.
Every fight.
Every blow.
I became the human shield, the sponge for chaos.
School turned grey.
Books became ink stains.
My brain—a shattered lens.
I started forgetting how to be alive.
Then came the blades, the pills.
Quietly.
Cleanly.
Not because I wanted to die.
But because I needed to feel less dead.
The blade,
When I couldn't breathe,
it gave me permission.
The pills,
When I needed silence,
it offered.
Afterwards, I'd feel
still.
Then it would begin again.
And again.
Until I stopped remembering how many scars were mine.
•
ENTRY 4
(Some pieces are not real. Some are too real.)
There was a man who taught me how to breathe again.
He didn't know that's what he was doing—he probably still doesn't.
To the world,
He was just a teacher.
Calm voice. Warm eyes.
The kind of person who asks how you are and means it.
He listened.
That's all.
But when you've spent your whole life being talked over, screamed through, and shoved aside—
being listened to feels like resurrection.
He told me I mattered.
He told me the things I was carrying were too heavy for someone my age.
And I nodded. I even smiled.
But deep inside, I was screaming,
"Then why won't they fall off? Why am I still breaking under them?"
I laughed once in his office.
I don't remember why.
Maybe I was nervous.
Maybe it was grief in disguise.
The sound surprised me. It felt like it came from someone else's throat.
I felt guilty for making a happy noise in a world that had none for me.
But I laughed anyway.
Then I cried.
---
And then there was her.
My friend.
No—more than that.
My second soul stitched into another body.
She never ran away from my darkness.
She sat in it with me.
She asked questions and waited for the answers, even when they took days, months.
She stayed when I vanished behind myself.
She'd send me music when I couldn't speak.
She'd sit beside me when I couldn't breathe.
And once,
she said, "You don't have to be strong for me."
I don't think she knows what that meant to me.
It was the first time in years I allowed myself to feel tired.
---
Somehow, through them,
I finished high school.
But I wasn't whole.
I wasn't even half.
I walked out with a piece of paper that said I survived.
But I hadn't.
Whatever I was supposed to become had already curled up in a dark corner of my head and died.
•
ENTRY 5
("If I Begin to Breathe, Will the World End Me First?")
Two years ago,
I swallowed the pills.
I wanted silence.
I wanted one night where I didn't dream of fire or fists or screaming mouths.
And if lucky enough, cross over.
But my body betrayed me again—
And opened its eyes.
Screamed its way back into the world.
They gave me a label:
Recurrent Depressive Disorder.
It sounded clinical.
Cold.
As if pain could be folded neatly into a file and medicated into submission.
They handed me pills like a peace offering.
White. Coloured. Hope-flavored.
I swallowed them quietly.
And waited.
For something to change.
For anything to stop hurting.
---
I think they're working now.
Maybe.
Probably.
How else could I be writing this without shaking?
(Unless this is still a dream.)
---
Most mornings, I wake up angry that I woke up.
But I get up anyway.
Sometimes that's all I can do.
I still don't sleep well.
I still have nights where I stare at the ceiling and ask it to collapse.
---
I try to see the good in life.
I really do.
The way morning light lands on my window.
The sound of my sister laughing in the other room.
That one tree down the street that turns gold in October.
Even with the fear that joy is a trick.
---
But there's this... expectation I carry.
Like bad things are always waiting.
Like if I let my guard down for one second,
the world will bite down again.
I don't remember when it started—
maybe the first time I heard my mother scream.
Maybe the night I thought the match would finally light.
---
I don't cling to death.
I think death clings to me.
It curls up at my feet at night.
It whispers during the quietest hours,
"You don't really belong here, do you?"
---
People say:
"Choose life."
"Be strong."
"Hold on."
But they don't understand.
I did choose life.
Every single day I open my eyes is a battle no one sees.
And I am so tired of fighting wars that don't end.
---
I'm not afraid of dying.
I'm afraid that I'll finally want to live—
and life won't want me back.
---
My sister—
She speaks now.
Not in full paragraphs,
but in sentences that don't tremble.
That's victory.
My brothers—
Bright-eyed and loud.
They ask questions I don't have answers to,
and I'm grateful.
They haven't yet learned how to fear their own voices.
I hope they never do.
---
My father—
He's quieter now.
Not kinder.
Just… tired.
I know more now.
His past is a cave filled with bones.
He lost his father early.
His brother was murdered by someone who should have protected them.
He was ten—
alone in unfinished buildings,
eating bakery trash to stay alive.
No wonder he became noise.
No wonder he shouted to exist.
The rage was all he had left.
And he gave it to us like an inheritance.
Like a curse passed down in blood.
---
My mother—
She should be a ghost.
But she isn't.
She still smiles.
Still hums while sweeping.
Still finds beauty in broken places.
I don't understand it.
But I envy her for it.
---
Me?
I'm still trying.
Even if my hands shake.
Even if my heart sometimes forgets why it beats.
Maybe that's enough.
Is it?
———