sunrise || m.h.

Alcohol

The first time he struck me, I was nine years old. I had accidentally broken a vase that fake flowers were kept in and he struck me for the first time. Tears filled my eyes, but I didn't scream. 

I could smell the alcohol on his breath. I could see it in the way he walked, stumbling over things that weren't really there. I could hear it in his voice when he yelled at me. His words were slurred and they came out in an order that didn't make sense. I was too scared to tell him that. 

The next day when he came home, I smelled the same sickening smell of alcohol again. I stayed in my room, hoping I hadn't broken anything else while he was gone. His footsteps were loud and heavy as he came up the stairs. My door was opened without permission, and he was in my room, looking at me with bloodshot eyes. 

"I thought I told you to clean your room" He said with the same slurred words as before. 

I looked around my room, distressed, seeing the clothes littered across the floor. 

He took a step towards me and slapped me, then he left. I let myself cry as I picked up my things and listened to the TV downstairs. 

It happened many more times after that, even if I had done nothing wrong. Every day, he was drunk, from morning until late at night when he fell asleep on the couch with a beer in hand. In the mornings, I learned to clean up after him. It made him less angry when he woke up. I would fill garbage bags full of food wrappers and beer cans, being so careful to not wake him up. I washed up the dishes scattered around the living room and had the entire house cleaned by ten in the morning. I set a glass of water on the table in front of where he slept along with pain pills for his hangover. Then I went back upstairs before he woke up. 

I've been living that way for 11 years. It's the same thing every day. Wake up early enough to clean up after him, make him breakfast, then try to hide in my room while he gets drunk. He used to go out to the bar at night but after I tried to run away when I was 12 he stopped leaving. He used to try to find a reason to abuse me. He would pile chores on top of me to do in a small amount of time that were nearly impossible, just to beat me later when he found something wasn't done. Now he doesn't need a reason. He does it out of rage. Rage for me getting in the way, for me needing to eat his food when there's nothing else, for my existence in the same house as him. I would never dare ask to leave. When I was 15 I asked to live on my own since I get in the way, but that turned into the worst night of my life. I've never been so hurt. Physically and from his words. I've never cried more than I had then either. 

He took me out of school at an early age. I was in 5th grade. My teacher asked why I had a black eye one day at school and I was too afraid to tell he the truth. She called my dad and asked if he knew I had it. He denied knowing anything about it and took me out of school the next day saying we were moving. We never moved.

I grew up without any friends. He never allowed me to make any. I had no contact with anybody. As far as he knew, I didn't have a phone. The truth is, I had a phone hidden from him that he never found out about. I took small amounts of money while he slept until I had enough to buy myself one. It was a very old, very cheap phone. It was the nicest thing I had. 

I also kept a journal with the phone. I wrote down everything he did to me. I wrote about my dreams and things I wanted to do that I know I'll never be able to. It felt nice to get things out. Even if nobody would ever hear them.