I Exist

Mentions of child abuse.

I never meant for anyone to read my book. In fact, if you did read it, I still can’t decide whether that’s a blessing or a curse. But before I drown in the nostalgia of my muddled past, allow me to state one thing.

I exist.

I wish I could say that I typed Barren Skies on some grand platform, lofted into the ether as a triumphant anthem—maybe a war cry against those dark nights defeated by alcohol’s embrace or the hollow chuckles that reverberated through the walls of my childhood home. But honestly, I penned it amidst the detritus of fear and regret, sitting at a desk that felt too small for the cacophony of my thoughts.

I didn’t intend to publish that piece. It was crafted in the shadows of grief and desperation. I wrote it when the world felt like too much—when my father’s drunken rages treated our house like a punching bag or when my mother’s silence was a tightrope walk over a boiling sea. It was my refuge, scribbled in half-light when reality burned too bright. The words flowed like blood from an open wound, spilling across the pages, raw and unhindered.

When the urge to publish gnawed at the edges of my mind, I pushed the gate wide, and everything spilled out. I pressed “publish” recklessly, akin to throwing a match into a barrel of gasoline. I thought I was just unloading in a catharsis of sorts. I never expected my novel to become a beacon, drawing eyes to the dark pit of my childhood. To the sordid underbelly of a family that masqueraded as ordinary.

Three weeks went by like a dream-filled haze after my decision until I woke to a message one morning. A post had gone viral, and the unexpected announcement surged through social media: “Found this gem, and I can’t put it down!” a reader declared after picking up my book amidst the torrent of self-published drivel. The praises rolled in like waves, each crashing louder than the last, carrying my fragile hopes along for the ride. It felt good, intoxicating almost.

People sought me out. But they weren’t just readers—they became uninvited ghosts haunting my inbox, sharing their stories of pain and regret, aching sores oozing heavy sincerity. I listened, heart pounding, but deep down, I was terrified. These were threads woven into a fabric I didn’t want to touch. I wasn’t fit to guide even a robot down a straight, lit path; how could anyone open their soul to me and expect some sort of advisor?

While suffocating under my desire and incapacity to help those who wandered to me, the letter arrived. The one that shattered my reverie. I found it crumpled beneath my door, words curling like smoke. We need to talk about your parents, it said, and suddenly I was cast into a world I thought I knew.

My existence as a kid who found solace in syllables, who discovered a realm beyond the clutter of life’s harsh realities, took a darker turn. Because beneath the facade of normalcy, I learned that my parents weren’t just dysfunctional, but entwined in something far more sinister. The public screams, the closed doors; the secrets lingered like stale food, pungent and unseen. My father was implicated in a local drug ring, a notorious figure deep in the grime of organized crime.

I fell in and out of truth, like drowning in murky water only to gasp for air repeatedly. They say revelations hit you like a freight train, but they lied; it was far worse. I was a marionette dancing on strings I couldn’t see, and I felt sick as I realized anyone could have flipped through the pages of my tale and seen my reality buried within.

How could I have turned my life into a work of fiction, exposing my disassembled family like a relic under glass? Ezra—my unwitting avatar—had once balanced upon the precipice, teetering between innocence and bitter awakening, and now, so was I. I was trapped in some cruel imaginative spiral, unable to twist myself out of the consequences of revealing things better left unmentioned.

“They used you, kid,” a reporter told me, her eyes piercing into my soul. “Your book’s the key piece of evidence.”

I smiled at her, told her I was glad they were finally caught. But the sounds grated, dragging the victor from my throat until I threw up in the corner of my room, behind the door. It was poetic, really. And there I sat, just a boy with fingers fumbling through the shambles I’d made, desperate to reclaim the fragments of my being.

With shaking hands, I opened a new document, staring at the blank screen as I fought through the haze of panic. I had to write. I had to disentangle this tension gripping my chest, leading from my past and tightening with each dawning breath. I began with a single line.

I exist.

Embracing the vulnerability I had held at bay for too long, I let everything unravel.

I exist, I wrote again. And it was liberating.

I exist in this world that isn’t just fiction. I exist in the web we are all tangled in together—truth, love, pain, and the memories that haunt us. I exist at a cost higher than many are willing to pay.

Not everyone would understand, and many would continue to harbor anger. But for the first time, as I transcribed these assertions, my voice had the opportunity to ring out not as a victim or the product of a dark upbringing, but as someone determined to rise above the scars.

I allowed my sorrow and outrage to pour out. I painted the brutality of those nights filled with stillness. I wrote of the iron grip of my father’s fists, the heat of his breath that smothered my pleas for peace. The ink flowed like a river—sometimes dark, sometimes turbulent—but slowly, steadily carving through stone.

I might not save the world with my words, but perhaps I can finally save myself.