I'm ready to fucking burst and it'll either be with explosive anger or with explosive fucking tears.

I can identify why I'm acting like a cornered fucking animal but I have no clue how to deal with it besides blaming myself and telling myself I deserve this fear. I deserve to be nothing. I shouldn't aim for anything higher but oh man you're writing can be good sometimes. You can be valid and pretty.

And then I figured out that this is exactly how things went at home. If it wasn't physical beatings it was just a barage of attacks on my mind.

And then I figured out that this is exactly how things went at home. If it wasn't physical beatings it was just a barage of attacks on my mind.

•"You're fat."

•"You're ugly."

•"You'll be alone just like your grandmother."

•"Your parents divorced because of you."

•"You stink."

•"My daughter doesn't appreciate her life. She should kill herself and I wouldn't care."

•"You're stupid."

•"You. Have. Potential."

There's so much more but the cycle of abuse was to attack me until I cried and started screaming. Then they would act like I overreacted. That I wanted attention. They suffocated every chance of me growing into something amazing. I never got to blossom and now I'm afraid. I'm afraid and only hear the things they said to me. The things they let happen to me.

When I was fourteen I was a virgin. I was exploring my sexuality with vigor and with timid steps. I was hoping to escape and get to have a life like a normal teenager. I get to be a kid. My first kiss was magical. A few weeks later my mothers boyfriend, who had previously molested me at 11, raped me over the course of two months. I spoke up. I saved myself and she told my friends lies and got them to spill secrets I trusted them with. They believed her over me. My brothers already hated me. They saw me as less than them. So they acted like it was a shock. I still remember visiting my mom the summer after. I remember listening to them make fun of me mimicking how they thought I sounded while I was being raped.

I never made a sound. I hate myself. I hate the people around me. I just want to die.

Here I am six years later. Alone and miserable. No friends and no family. When I tell people I don't talk to any of my family they look down at me and say "Family is all you have." As if it's my fault I don't talk to them. As if I choose to be like this. I turned to drugs. Mostly pain killers. Now weed. Anything to make me forget. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at fifteen years old. They never put me on any medication. I stopped talking to both my parents and later lost out on therapy. The one thing keeping me stable. I met my current boyfriend of five years. I hate being with him. I hate him. All he does is bring out the worst in me. He himself suffers from depression often never showering for weeks on end. He doesn't see a problem with this. His weight has increased rapidly. Somehow according to his family this is my fault. I should be taking care of him. Doing everything for him.

His family treats me like I don't know anything. They look down at me for simply being anything except Puerto Rican. They've told him time and time again that I'm not good enough for him. That I'm ugly and he can do better then me. He drags me down and holds me back. Whenever I reach a certain number in my savings he pressures me to spend it. He lets his family talk down to me. He let them call me a bum and a low life. His younger brother and nephew use to stand by the door and clap there hands over their mouths to make Indian calls. They made snide comments behind my back about my appearance and weight. I dealt with it because I really did love their son at the time. His family forged a wedge between us and he only got worse. We broke up a few times and I believed we had ended when I was seventeen. Instead he came crying to my front door. His mother had thrown a vase at him and he barely missed it. He left soon after. We were heading back that same night and his family came in the car bringing their troubles with them. They sent their daughter to attack me and him.

My brothers friend, a friend my mom turned against me, pulled a knife on me. My boyfriend made me leave my mothers home. My mom was okay with him pulling a knife on me. I hate them. I hate everyone. She still laughs at me. She keeps me around just to feed her ego, to save her from being alone with her thoughts. I don't reach out to her. If she wants to talk she can call me. I want to confront her about all of the things that happened. She'll cry and pretend she feels bad. She'll expect to bend at her tears. But she's done it before. When I told the school what was happening to me my mother went around telling people that I lied. I made it all up. She told people I had never met before in my life that her daughter lied about being raped just to get back at her. Just for attention. I never lied. I suffer each and every day. I try my damn hardest to regain that youthful excitement again. All I'm left with is a broken mind and a broken body. Each day my right hip hurts from mundane day to day things. It's a constant reminder about what happened to me. One moment I tried to fight back and he pushed my leg so hard my disk slipped. Six years later and it still hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts. I just want it to go away. Eight years ago when I spoke up about when he molested me my guidance counselors told me some things.

•"They always go after pretty girls like you!"

•"Take it as a compliment it means you're pretty."

•"Nobody knows the difference between girls who don't get better and girl's who do."

Support makes them better. Support gives them a sense of stability. I had no one. My mom made sure of that. The last thread of happiness I had was my younger brother. We only had each other. When I started dating my boyfriend I would leave from morning to night my brother felt like he only had my mom to look out for him. She fed him lies. Her and my brothers use to ask him "Why didn't DYFS help you?" One day he asked me that same question. He said nobody cared about him and that it was always about me. And suddenly he hated me. He cut me off as his sister. He belitted me called me names. He was all I had left. I haven't spoken to him in four years. He makes light of my issues. He refuses to see the truth. He succumbed to depression. He stopped thriving to achieve anything. It hurts me. I want to help him. He doesn't have a sister anymore.

Slowly I stopped writing and reading. I loved both of these things. My schools considered me above average with these things. I stopped listening to music. I stopped loving the things I used to escape. My world grew empty. It stayed empty. I'm trying my best to bring some sense of meaning to my life. I'm trying to break this cycle but I've no help. Everyone just looks at me as if I chose this path in life that these hardships were because of me and my faults. I hate them for it. I hate everyone who has loving parents. I hate everyone who had a home to go to instead of roaming the streets at 11 at night waiting for their mom to finish fucking her boyfriend. I hated people who never knew the sick feeling of knowing that it would be you later that same night.

We had a neighbour in a two family home. Her name is M. She was nice to us and would feed us balanced dinners and let us hang out in her apartment. I liked her. She was small but tough and a very nice lady. Her baby was very sweet. Always smiling. My mom put her in a bind. Cheap rent if she cleaned our apartment. Cheaper if she let her boyfriend live with her and never said a thing. I became suspicious. Everyone else knew he lived there. Everyone decided to hide it from me and actively threatened my safety. My mom took pictures of me on her iPad and would leave it upstairs for him. My mom left me home alone all the time to drive down to Florida with my brother in pursuit of a business marriage. She brought extended family to live with us. He still raped me. When I was sixteen they called me in to ask me questions. At this point it was recommended I not be apart of the trials. This was the first and last time they called me in. The lawyer looked at with such a sad face. And asked me multiple questions.

He asked me where my mom was when all of this was happening.

1. When I was eleven I woke up early that morning because the spring sun was shining so brightly and there was a cold breeze coming through my window. I felt so at peace, so cosy, so safe in my bedroom. I heard my mom whispering, agitated and urgent, at her boyfriend. This morning was different. This morning she sent him in to wake me up while she laid awake. My bed is pressed against the same wall hers is pressed against. My room right next to her. She listened, he left the door wide open, as he moved me around the bed. As he touched and licked my body. My bed isn't quiet. It moves a bit and creaks under slight pressure. I feel the bile rising in my throat just typing this. She knocks on the wall. I find out it's time to wake up. I go in the shower and cry standing under hot water washing away the things that came out of me. He came in the bathroom and turned on the sink. He leaves. I get out and tell my mom what happened. I get sent to school. She pulls me out and asks what I wanted to do. She said "Do you want to call the cops or kick him out? The cops won't do anything since there is no proof." I said kick him out. Two weeks later he's back. A year later I tell someone.

2.My mother leaves to Florida, driving down, taking my sick little brother with her. He talks to me. Gains my trust. And then rapes me for months. Every night. In the dark. I wouldn't hear my mom snoring around this time. Just my music softly blaring from the speakers. He would spend an hour doing what he wanted. I would bury myself mentally and pretend I'm someplace else. Pretend that I somehow get past this. That I fall in love. That I write this amazing book and people love it. I dreamt always about wanting love. I died a little each day. He gave me heavy pills that one gets when they are recovering from broken bones. It's how I slept. It's how I got by. I was fourteen. I just wanted to live out my youth in relative happiness. Instead my memories weren't of cute shy boys giggling with me between secret moments. They were memories of blurred days. A night that I stood in the dark on the bottom floor level with our garage. I stood in dog piss and dirty clothes as he talked to me. It was then that I knew I needed to make a change. The family from Florida came. A fight broke out over a dirty stove. My mom threatens to kill me and herself if I tell the school what happened. The next day I shower downstairs and walk myself to school. I tell them what has been going on behind closed doors and happy frizzy hair. I am saved for a moment. I lose everything slowly after. They all blame me.

My mother knew what was happening to me. When he finally confessed in court they asked why he did this to me.

He said "Kids like to experiment."

His daughter renounced his name.

His family left this part of the state.

I lost everything over and over again.

They say golden cats are good luck in viking culture. Great beasts of house cats would pull Freyas chariot and not even Thor could lift those cute kitties. I had one. I got him when I was twelve. I love him with all my heart and it pains me to know that he was abandoned time and time again. I wish I had the power to take him with me. He would comfort me at night and wait for me to come home during the day. He was a proud cat. A very sweet cat. Our neighbors took him in. He still wanders through the park across the street from our old home. He is a good boy. I don't look for him. It would hurt too much. When I'm under great stress I have episodes of hallucination. I would see black thick snakes coiling around my legs. Shadows dancing behind me. Voices calling me from a dark hallway. I would have awful nightmares containing forced sex and rats. But I always saw a a bouncy orange cat running along with me. I knew it wasn't my current cat Sollux. Sollux was still young and hadn't come into his adult body yet. Whatever it was it kept me safe. It kept me stable.

Before my boyfriend had forced me to live with him his friend offered us a cat. I said yes immediately. My mom was fine with it. I didn't pick or see the cat I was getting until he came. A two month old orange tabby who I held close my chest the moment I got him. I loved him the moment he looked at me. The moment his tiny little body was in my hands I knew I had to do everything I couldn't do for Garfield. He grew up bonding with me. He slept with me every night and I skipped school to watch over him. We played, we talked, we shared moments in silence together. Him playing me making food or settling down for some TV. I took great pains to give him what he needed. Eventually we left and I took my baby with me. Me and my boyfriend spend the best for him on litter and food. When I got a job I showered him with treats and wet food. It pained me to leave him alone but he was always happy to see me again. He's a big boy and doesn't like to cuddle all the time but when he does he stays with me all days and night. He lets me carry him around and he follows me. When I first started working he would follow me to and from the bathroom. Some days he would leave me be. Other days he had to be in there with me. If there's ever a moment I cry and become inconsolable he would paw at me and meow at me trying to get my attention. He'll sit beside me or close by if I don't respond. I'll pet him. And he'll be content knowing I'm ok. I can't ever forget how he comes meowing rushing at me whenever I got home when he was a little baby. How he threw himself on me and purred like he had won. I can't forget now how he wakes up when I come home and looks at me with big eyes. He sits beside me and purrs while I break down after a long day.

He runs off to play and eat when I'm done. I live for him because I'm his whole world. He meows and looks for me if I don't come home on time. I can't put that stress on him. No matter how bad I want to die I couldn't do that to him. Not ever. I don't have anything else to put down right now but it helped ease my anger though I'm still irritated.

I'm tired of my boss looking down at me and my coworkers thinking ill of me. I'm only a kid and don't understand anything. The way they live is obviously superior and my life will amount to nothing and I will be nothing. I will be nobody. I'm so close to getting my ID and opening a bank account.. I just need one more thing.