My Father

TW: parental abuse, self harm, suicidal ideation, murder

March 6, 2020

Today will be my first diary entry. But it certainly won’t be my last.

I hope that when I die, when all that’s left of me is a cold body, that you will find this book, and you won’t let the memory of me die.

If you decide to do that, rest assured that I will haunt your memory forever.

Yes, Father, I am talking to you. I am sure that a play of fates will ensure that you will be the one to find my body in the end. That is what you deserve, after all.

I wonder whether you cried over my body or whether you let out a sigh of relief at being freed of the burden that I have been to you your entire life. I am sure it was the latter. But if the ink is running down the page as you are poring over it right now, I believe that you regret my death.

That makes me smile.

******

March 10, 2020

I asked you today whether I could see her, whether I could touch her small body again, whether I could hold her in privacy.

You only slapped me and locked the door to the room again.

The walls seem to be closing in with every day.

Will the walls suffocate me to death, or will you?

******

March 16, 2020

I suppose I should be thankful that I have been locked in my own room for the last ten days.

I know every corner and crevice of this place. I know where it is the coldest and the warmest. I know the angle at which the window should be closed so that a thin strip of light falls on my body every morning and wakes me up.

I want to go back to my job. I don’t know if my colleagues even notice that I am gone.

I wouldn’t notice it if I was them.

******

March 19, 2020

Maybe staying awake throughout the night is the only way to stop the nightmares. His face appears in front of my closed eyes, and I feel like he is hiding in this very room, waiting to make an entrance.

Maybe the cause of my death will be the lack of sleep.

******

March 26, 2020

I just finished throwing up all the food I had eaten. It didn’t help at all when you punched me in the stomach, asking me why I had made such a mess.

I wanted to tell you that my stomach still hurt after delivering the child, and that it had only been a month, and I was missing her. That I would be okay if I just saw her face.

But I bit my tongue until the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth and lay there in a pool of my own blood until the strip of light fell on me again.

******

April 23, 2020

My body is still aching from yesterday’s punishment. I have only now realized that it has been over a month since I have last written.

I don’t remember much of this month that has passed. All I know is the bits and pieces I heard around me.

A seizure is what the white-clothed men and women had called it.

I had shaken my head in denial when a lady with crinkles around her eyes had asked me if I could explain the bruises on my body. I had enjoyed the brief smile on your face when I had lied straight to hers.

It felt good to be appreciated by you, even if it was just for a second.

Despite everything that has happened, and even after you have shown your true colours to me, I still yearn for your approval, Father.

Congratulations to you.

You have officially gained control of every part of me.

******

May 3, 2020

You didn’t remember that it was my birthday today. I sat in my room, my body shaking as my face became sticky with salt running from my eyes. I wailed and screamed until your prized security guards entered the room and asked what was wrong.

I wanted you to come.

But you didn’t.

You didn’t bring me a birthday cake or a present.

I hate you.

******

May 29, 2020

One of your friends came over yesterday. He was the nice uncle, the one who always gave me a candy bar every time he saw me.

I screamed until my throat was scratchy and raw, and he even heard me and came upstairs to investigate.

You lied to him and convinced him that it was just the wind.

He was only a few feet from me.

I could have been saved.

But you showed me again that I am beyond the point of being saved.

******

June 13, 2020

I cut myself today.

I’ll leave you a drop on this page, just so you know and always remember what the blood you spilt looks like, what it smells like.

I hope it is imprinted in every fibre of your being.

You are a murderer.

You murdered your own daughter.

You killed every part of her without killing her at all.

My blood will always be on your hands.

Stop trying to wash it off.

******

July 15, 2020

I woke on a hospital bed again a few days back.

I had cut myself and lost consciousness.

Apparently, I had another seizure, which is why I don’t remember a moment of it.

You seemed almost worried for me when you peered over me when you thought I wasn’t looking.

I was though, and the light that reflected off your eyes indicated that you had felt something close to sadness looking at me lying there.

Maybe that’s how you will look the day it all ends.

I won’t know though.

******

August 2, 2020

You just left the room a few seconds back, fuming at not being able to find this very book which I am writing in.

I am feeling quite smug about the fact that you didn’t see it in plain sight, that you didn’t ask even once what the bulge in my coat was.

I don’t feel smug anymore.

I feel quite nauseous.

******

August 23, 2020

I managed to get a picture of her.

My daughter.

I am keeping it in this book itself.

You tried to search for it, didn’t you?

You’re sitting on the floor, only a few inches away from where you found my body, and you’re shaking the book like some kind of maniac.

You won’t find it.

You killed her too.

******

September 16, 2020

His best friend came today.

You know that because you were the one who punched his face.

He came to see me, didn’t he?

He threatened to kill me, didn’t he?

I know which one of his friends it would have been.

Brown hair, birthmark right above his eyebrow.

You should call him to my funeral.

He should at least be able to do that, he needs to watch as his best friend’s murderer is finally laid to rest in the ground.

Because I killed him.

For real.

And thus, began all your worries.

You remember the time you used to love me?

Yeah, I don’t remember either.

******

November 18, 2020

It is getting harder to stay awake.

Maybe I should just close my eyes and let go.

It is not like anyone is going to miss me.

******

December 14, 2020

I think about him a lot more these days.

His long, slender fingers. His raspy voice. His body on mine.

I hope you are feeling uncomfortable Father.

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant with his child.

I remember the day I killed him.

I find that whenever I do get nightmares about him and cut myself, I don’t think about his dead body with a knife in it.

No, I think about our first kiss. I think about the first time he told me he loved me. I remember the heat of his breath on me, the taste of his mouth, the stickiness of his body.

These memories are the ones that make me want to die.

Thankfully, I am dead by the time you are reading this.

******

January 1, 2021

It is the new year.

I wanted to see the fireworks, but the words died in my mouth when I saw you today. You tend to have that effect on me.

I mean, you tended too.

Now my mouth is shut whether you want me to open it or not.

When I looked out the window, I thought I saw him.

His smiling face was there, somewhere in the crowd.

The dizzy feeling in my head hasn’t gone yet.

******

January 25, 2021

I feel very much like taking my life today, so I am going to come clean before it is too late.

I know that the reason you have kept me in my room for almost a year is a valid one.

You think that your daughter is a criminal and you want to protect her.

I can understand the sentiment.

But you don’t know the whole story.

After reading this, you will definitely regret all of it, I will make sure of that.

The boy who made me pregnant, the father of my daughter, he was the criminal.

I told him I was pregnant and then he took a knife and aimed for my stomach, trying to kill me and my baby in one stab.

Two birds with one stone.

After that, what happened, I can’t tell you.

I only remember that one moment the knife was in his hand, the next moment it was in him.

I only killed him because he was going to kill me.

It was self-defence.

If this is the last day I am alive, I want you to promise me something.

Find my daughter, and bring her home.

Don’t put her under house arrest like you have done with me.

I mean, I am entrusting you with the responsibility of raising my daughter.

I know you must be surprised at the trust I still seem to have in you.

But for you to go against the daughter you have always loved and punish her for her crimes is something that takes all the will power and strength that you have.

Major respect to you for that.

******

February 3, 2021

Surprise, surprise. I am still very much alive.

That is, I am very much alive today.

The day you are reading this, not so much.

I decided against the whole suicide thing. After coming clean on paper, I didn’t feel in the killing mood anymore.

These days, when you enter the room, I try to talk to you, even if it was just to ask you about your day.

After coming clean on paper, I have been overtaken by the urge to come clean in real life, and for you to hear the truth from my own mouth.

******

February 28, 2021

You are warming up to me again, I can tell.

You smiled at me today.

That hasn’t happened in a long time.

******

March 6, 2021

Today seems like a good time as any to tell you the truth.

You are going to come in after lunch and I am going to sit you down.

With your large hand in my small ones, I am going to close my eyes and tell you all of it.

I will bear every punishment, but not the punishment of the truth being shrouded forever.

After that, I will tear this book into pieces.

The moment I tell you, this book is of no use.

Because the moment I tell you, I will decide that I don’t want to die.

Because the law and the world may go against me, but after you learn the truth, you will be my biggest supporter.

I love you, Father.

******