Content Warning: Family Stress, Parental Trauma, Codependency, Social Ostracization, Emotional Abuse
To my closest friend,
I know where you are.
You’re where you’ve been for so long, even though you shouldn’t be there anymore. Even though everyone has already left, those that remain bring you nothing but pain and pity. You hate them and need them because you can’t do anything on your own. You can’t utter a word as he ties your dog to the kitchen cabinets; you haven’t been cleaning after them like you said you would, so what could you say in your defense (then we should have actually gotten them potty trained)? The words were caught in your throat, and it took a lifetime’s worth of courage and hatred to say, “I really don’t think you have to shout!” with that tiny voice wracked with fear. He turned around and looked at you like you had said the most ridiculous thing, then said he had to shout because you’re not doing what you’re supposed to.
You hate him and spend every day finding more ways to hate him (it distracts me from hating myself). Yet you are still here, taking his money, eating his food. Because he still smiles at you when he asks you where you want to eat or if you want to tag along with your sister on her trip to Japan (don’t make me another pity pick lingering in the back). He crosses some lines, but not the line. Some years ago, he said those words that you dreaded, and he stopped you from running out, yet he hasn’t said them since. You really don’t know why. Maybe he actually feels regret over how he treated you when you were little (he thinks he’s right about everything). Maybe he’s hoping you actually have some sort of plan behind those vacant, complacent eyes of yours.
You want to leave, but you don’t. You want to speak, but you don’t because you don’t have the right. You don’t have the right to cry, to mourn, to complain when you stay in that same little corner, when everything that comes out of your head is deflected blame and excuses. You should’ve done more, tried more. You could do more, but you don’t. You’re content to stay right there.
