A sinner

FYI BEFORE READ. this was made as a personal note to a stepsister i lost over time, this is more of a note then a true poem. but i felt the need to share. A sinner Was I born this way? Did I change after that night? Was I born as impure as I am now? or was I once pure like all the angels? I find myself staring at my blank gray walls, wondering if this was a choice—if I unconsciously chose this path to digression. As I sit awake, staring at these gray walls that once were your teal ones—the walls with the brown wooden organizer shoved against them in a disordered fashion, the walls where I first experienced pure childhood bliss with you—they speak to me. They echo our giggles, the agony of sobs, and the pure hatred expressed in this room. The closet we hid in, where we entertained ourselves, now holds unwanted memories I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. As we held each other, crying over what seemed like insignificant moments that night, it was not insignificant for us. The sounds of anger and hatred from your father's mouth, the neglect from my mother's—we were each other's person. While you may not remember, I do. I remember sitting, holding myself, sobbing as I worried about my mother and wondered why we were leaving in the middle of the night. You should have been scared as well. Maybe you were, but still, you held me as I cried into the night sky, begging for it all to stop, yearning for just one night of silence. I remember it all. I remember the night I came home to find my mother bruised on her arms, legs, torso, and face. I remember the horror on my face, unaware of what was happening. As I sat in that diner at 8 a.m., I was given the option to leave—to leave you, your father, your brother, and escape this abusive life i was so brainwashed into for these few years. Yet, I couldn't bring myself to leave you. Leaving you was never a choice for me, but in the end, I think I did leave because I envied you. You were not given a life-changing opportunity. You were not there that night, sobbing as you hid in the closet to distance yourself, holding your body close as your world collapsed. You were not the one to stop them, to break them up, to scream for them to stop. It was me. To this day, I don't know if you fully know the truth of that night, and for that, I will forever envy you. I was angry that it was me who had gone through it. It was only my childhood that ended those nights; the childhood bliss of unawareness was over for me. I suppose it was for you as well, but it was not ripped from you in a few seconds as it was for me. A man you were supposed to look up to didn't strip the innocence of bliss from you in mere seconds. You will never know what it was like that night as I do. You will not know what it was like to see the one person you loved—your mother—bloody and bruised from the work of a man she was supposed to "love." Yet, I suppose it was your father who committed the unlawful act, and you'd have to live with being his daughter, having his face, his laugh. You'd have to live with that, whereas I did not. But alas, I still envy you. I am still years later waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares of him coming back. You cannot say the same. You have moved on; you have a lover, friends, and a loving family. I have none. I am stuck living that nightmare until it releases me. You are not the same as me; you are pure. You'd never hurt someone without knowing, unlike me. when i think of our friendship/sisterhood it reminds me of a song lyric i heard once before"I am a sinner; you are a saint"—Mother Mother. The reason I was so angry was because I was so envious. So, I've painted your beautiful teal walls to my shade of dull gray. I've donated your clothes and changed your room into my own. Your beautiful soul has been erased in this house. Now, you're merely a ghost over my shoulder I shove away. we wanted our parents to marry so we could become REAL sisters. but to me you were already my true sister “e”. tho it’s been years i often still think of you, nearly everyday you may think this is odd, considering i was the one who ruined our friendship. but alas i still think back to the times i would pretend to call you my sister, how we had woken up a few hours after nightfall to spend Christmas with just each-other, nobody else. that was the closest i would ever get to having someone love me so much as you did. -“Lindsey”