Life is Hard Sometimes

It's a true story. I'm starting to learn things I didn't know before. I'm starting to learn how to live. It's a difficult process.

I feel as though I was just born, naked and shivering, into adulthood. The world can be frightening and painful. Stark and unwelcoming. I drag myself across the pavement, reaching out desperately for something to hold on to.

I know nothing, I see everything, I am learning how to live. This thing, it's opened up terrible and wonderful things in me.

List Items, Tagless

A project:

No.

I can't do it.
I don't want to.
I want all my secrets back.
I want to confess all over again.

It's not cathartic.
It makes you weak.
It all comes back again.

This is not what I am writing.
I am not writing this.
Someone else is writing this.

I am disembodied.
I can shake this body.
I am talking nonsense.

Again.

This is healthy.
This is unhealthy.
This is healthy.
This is unhealthy.

Again.

Little

I'm not as smart as I've been led to believe. I tend to forget this. Yes, it's true, I am quite intelligent. But there's a little circle here and a GIANT circle there, and only one of them is me.

I like being the little circle. I like being aware of being the little circle. It's important that I find things in the world, people, exceptionally, to remind myself that I am the little circle.

I don't think there's anything worse for me than being told that I am smart, or well put together. It deadens me. I live for learning. I live to grow. I live to see new things, to breathe new air, to walk barefoot on new lands, to drink in all the things I never knew I never knew. Tell me I'm smart, tell me I'm a found person, it's like putting a stopper in a bottle, like clipping a vine, like caging an animal.

I like being the little circle. I like knowing that a projection of me would only make the big cicle bigger. I like thinking that my brain is blossoming. A flower in bloom. I'm far from done. My brain is a geranium and my soul is it's stem and the sun and the sky and the rain will nourish them while my feet travel this earth picking up roots along their way.

Amen.

My Girl is an Icon

My girl is an icon.
My girl is fast and red.
In her halcyon days,
My girl, she flew.

My girl is an icon.
She's fire engine red.
My girl can burn.
My girl can put out fires.

My girl's got big black eyes.
My girl's got hair.
My girl could take you some,
And she wouldn't aplogize for nothin'.

My girl's like clockwork.
My girl's a swiss watch.
My girl could drop you.
It's in those eyes, my girl.

My girl is rough and tumble,
She won't hold back.
My girl's like charcoal.
My girl's a brick wall.

That's what I said.

Do You Dare Me?

I'm accustomed to learning things the hard way, and to not being happy. Generally, I reside at some traveling point along the axes of loneliness and panic.

Changes are afoot.

Life is moving forward, dear reader. Decisions being made, chapters being opened, breaks being taken. Choosing happiness is not an easy thing, I think. Not when life has conditioned you against it, at least. I've never been one to do things the easy way, never been much good at accepting help or seeking comfort. I also have a penchant for learning things the hard way, which makes the rapid-fire change-athlon risky business

Old Man Taylor, You're Not So Old.

"You know the feeling you get when you fix your eyes on one point on the side of the road as you're driving by really fast? Sometimes I think that's life, all of it, just like that. Things stretch out in front of us, stretch out behind us, but the right now, it just goes by so fast. Too fast to really catch."

The above comes from a conversation I had earlier today with my good friend Graeme. The feeling I refer to is one I first became conscience of when working on... uh... the Thames River Project (?) with six other artists from my high school, some of whom were extremely dear friends.

The sentiment refers to the odd position in which many of us find ourselves at the moment. That terrifying, awe inspiring feeling when you're on the precipice of a whole new life, peering back at all the things you've come to know and love, trying to crystallize all the perfect parts so you can take them with you where ever you go. Graduation? Something like that. I'm waxing far too poetic. Ah, well. You love me, whatever.

Go see the painting. It's hanging in the guidance office at my high school. See if you can find our names, carved into the frame. And say hello to the Atrium, while you're there.

Roundup!

Some days, I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Like, in a past life, I must have donated all of my organs for transplant after suffering fatal injuries while saving a busload of children from near death, my karma is so good. Ha. Tempting the fates, I can see.

I am lucky. Obscenely so. I have happiness, lots of it, and health, and, most importantly, love. So. Much. Love. I love more people than I can count on one hand, and I think that is remarkable. I have a life replete with love. Wow. Who can say that?! Who gets to live this life, to be this happy, to see and do these things? Who gets to be this person?! I do. It's a bloody gift.

it's weird though... i was thinking about all the stff that's going on in the next several weeks

it's kind of like going out with a bang... and now i am starting to get the oh-no-it's-almost-over feeling

what's almost over?

ottawa!

for me i mean

i will be leaving soon, and it's starting to get a bit.. nostalgic?

i here that

i mean, it's not like i'll be far, and i don't think it'll be hard for me to keep in touch with most, but still, i will miss hanging out in the market, and on elgin, and bytowne nights, and the diner, and zack's

and so many, many things

wow

i have really had a great life here

but for me, and this is what i'm posting about on my blog right now actually, home is really about the people

i definitely started to see how true this was of me when i went to hamilton... i've never been there before, but going to visit ciara, it definitely felt like coming home

that's why it feels like home. all of my friends are there. even though my family isn't (which in the past has made it feel like anything but home)... a lot of the people that I care about live in ottawa

but five years later, all the important people are still in my life, so i feel confident that the people i've grown to love in ottawa will stay with me too

they will be in your life, yes.

yup... that's the thing about friendship, it's sort of a lifelong quest... some people stay with you for the long haul, some come and go, but in the end, it's all about the sum of the love you've had

I have comfort, and passion, and desire and contentment. I have all these things, and more. Life is good. Life is brilliant. All I can see is blue sky.

What can I say?

It's not that I'm in love with a man. I'm in love with a feeling. The feeling, however, is associated with a man. The trouble is that I can't dissociate the man and the feeling. Also, I can't get past the feeling. Clearly, I need to stop chasing the dragon.

Someone once asked me how I do it. How I survive without many of the crutches that students and humans rely on. Okay, he was actually just asking how I pull off all-nighters without cigarettes or coffee. I'm editorialising. For self-inquiry's sake. Shut up.

I live my life according to an ethos. Do not hurt. Yes, sometimes I hurt, but only to mitigate, an exercise in disaster aversion, the prevention of bigger hurts. My life is all about the economics of pain.

Levitas: light in weight; levity or lightness.
Gravitas: substance, weightiness; a serious or dignified demeanour.
Veritas: the Truth; truth, verity; objective verity; the actual state or nature of things; reality.

I have to. It's an addiction of it's own. I have my weaknesses, indulgences, yes. Regular type, like a penchant for sugar. Discipline, self-denial, spartanism. These are my quorum. Made ascetic by life, by myself, by so many before, and then nineteen, and so many after.

Nineteen. They burn.

I deny myself.

I deny myself indulgence in a great many things. Not because of a hallowed belief in discipline. Not because of a distaste for luxury. Because of the picture in my head. A girl, long, dark hair, half-lidded eyes, short black dress exposing thin, pale thighs. Falling. Against a brick wall, against crumbling asphalt in a dirty alley, dark and wet. Intoxicated, awash in sorrow, alone, scraped, empty.

It would be me. It is. So many girls. Lost little girls. I don't know how to find them. I left them behind. Tried to leave them behind. They came. They went. I can't find them. Leave them alone and they'll come home, dragging their tails behind them.

Save them. Count them. Collect them. Like hockey cards. Who are you now, who have you been, where has your soul come to rest?

It's an aggregate. Life, too. It's an aggregate.

So the answer, then,

There is no answer, my friend-not-friend. It's the wrong question, you see. I don't have a secret to surviving without consuming these things, without self-indulgence. I survive because I avoid the things that would consume me. Or because I refuse to feed that one all-consuming pain. It eats away, certainly, fangs trained deep, tongue leeching the life out of my heart, but I will not let it grow stronger. It will not defeat me.

My secret for all-nighters: gorp.

Gorp: a mixture of high-energy food, such as nuts and dried fruit, eaten as a snack.

Gorp, Sarah style:

• 2 cups Quaker Natural Granola, Oats, Honey, and Raisins


• 1 package Reese's Pieces or Peanut Butter M&Ms


• 1 handful All-Bran Buds


• 1/2 handful Almonds

1. Take bowl out of cupboard.
2. Take stuff out of cupboard.
3. Pour granola into bowl.
4. Swear a lot and get really angry during epic battle with candy packaging.
5. Get down on hands and knees to pick candy up off the floor.
6. Pour other stuff into bowl.
7. Mix contents of bowl.
8. Pull all-nighter.

Note: measurements are for the weak. I just pour shit in a bowl. No exact science bullshit.

That, plus I drink a lot of water, to the point that I have to pee at least once an hour. This does wonders for keeping the system alert.

Warm and Sunny Days, She is Leaving

(The Dears and The Beatles)

I (heart) influences in art. They're like flavours. Hints. Things we don't know we've dreamt about. Little mysteries that will never be solved because we don't know they're there.

Or else they're just right there. For the taking, for the seeing.

It's intermediality.

Blessed postmodernity.

The Small

Thing: The Ostrich Underground.

Thing: Thinking.

Thing: New series, new inspirations, and new outlooks.

Thing: Research vs. Life Experience.

Thing: Being dissappointed (in people).

Thing: Massages, and why they might just save my life.

You can't understand a thing until you stop trying to interpret it.

My name is not Sarah, it is Sarah. Sarah. Seen-alif-ra'-hé. Sarah. It's a beautiful name, and it's all you need to know to understand me. It's a deep sounding name. Comes from the gut, the abdomen, and the deepest part of the respiratory system, right down at the bottom of the lungs. It's a deep sounding name, and it takes strength and some skill to say it. Also, determination. Ask me one day. Maybe I will sound it out for you. Sarah.

You can't understand a thing until you stop trying to interpret it. Interpretation entails assigning meaning. Making something - an idea, an occurrence, an object, or an emotion - digestible. Interpretation is an exercise in relating something to yourself. To your life, your experience, your universe. This will not help you understand things. To start understanding the world, you have to come to terms with the fact that you are not the world, and the world is not yours.

I live in the space between. In the grey zones. On the Fault Lines.

I find my hair lovely for two reasons: first, for being so black that it absorbs sunlight and gives me a feeling of permanence in life and possibilities of things being O.K.; second, for being thick, almost wiry. I like that my hair is tangible.

You can't expect to find the meaning in everything. You can't expect that you will understand everything, either. I do not understand measures of electricity. Amps, volts, hertz, they mean nothing to me. I don't know what they represent, either. Something about Coke bottles, and lemon meringue. Thanks for trying, Mr. Trudeau, thanks for trying, Karen.

My name is Sarah. You will never know me, because you do not understand that.

I forget, sometimes, most times, that we are not the same person. Or maybe I forget only on the odd occasion that we are. Either way, there are moments when we are not one hundred cents together, and those are the moments right before I realize how much you love me, and then I am dollars again.

There's a stranger in those photographs. I don't know who those women are.

Please don't compare her to me. Or her. We are very little alike. Or her, for that matter. There is very little that makes us similar, and yes, this is all about individualism, as that is what I am, in this context. An individual. You cannot divide me up into four women, expecting us to all be the same. We are not. We are different. I am different. I am not her. I am not the same. Can't you understand? Of course not. You don't even know my name.

Saturday Affirmation: I am not a GPA. I am not an ethnicity. I am not a last name or a religion. I am none of these things. I am Sarah. Say it.

Letters to Baby Sarah: Safe!

Hey Kiddo,

I keep walking around distracted-like, back and forth pretty quickly across the apartment, mostly because I don't know what to have for dinner, which is a crock, because I really just keep forgetting that I'm having spaghetti. Ha, pssghetti. Hey, kiddo. And also because my head is full of thoughts. And do you remember the time that you and Dad and Asim were playing marbles in the living room and Dad broke Mum's vase with an over enthused chip of Asim's big green glass crock that reminds me still of old seven-up bottles from back in the times of seven-up being your absolute fave?

Everything was OK though. You're out! You're safe! You're out! You're safe! You're Safe! SAFE! Dad knew one hundred cents how to fix it and you were dollars, all three of you, and Asim felt bad so he told Mum, and she didn't even scream or get mad or mind even a little. Only pretend-like, tease-y with Dad, which made it even more fun.

So there you go, kid. One really truly happy memory, from me to you. Hallelujah!

But the point of the letter, little one, was not to tell that story. That's a bonus. Super-boni! Gratuit! No, the point is to ask you a question.

Do you remember the day you knew you would one day die? I remember lots of little thoughts you had, but I don't remember when you figured out life's big secret. I remember that you were a little bit afraid of sleep, because you figured out that sleep was just about the same as death, minus the wake-up-figure-out-set-yourself-straight part every morning. But that was not so bad, you thought, because you were okay with sleep being a little scary and death being not so scary. You figured there were worse things than death. Like stewing beef. And horror.

I remember you asking Mum when she would die. She took it as kind of funny, but also a great affront. You didn't think it was so bad, on account of death being a part of everything, and really the only given in life. Also, a big part of the question was trying to get at the heart of whether or not you would definitely definitely die, and, if so, when, or could Mum maybe ask God how?

We were standing at the kitchen sink! You learned a lot at the kitchen sink. Like your brother is your best friend. Like burning things with god in them. Like not asking questions of people who are afraid of the answers and maybe a little afraid that you know more than them. And not to ever ever swear.

Ha. I swear like a sailor.

Don't take oaths, and never say never, little kiddo.

Tahir Mamu and Amirah Baji weren't that important, in the long run, in teaching you about death. It taught you lots of other things, but you already knew the facts of death. It taught you about taking things in stages. And about separation, and separation anxiety. And grieving. And that grown-up people don't often know what to say, and will frequently say the wrong thing, like "Take care of your mummy." when you are 8 years old and thinking "Woah. I am just a kid. Who will take care of me?"

I hope that when I have kids I wake up every morning to find them in a different place in our house. And that the sun shines through my curtains warmth-inducing-like, every single morning.

Talk to you soon,

Roo.

Things Seemed Much Better Then

I was just going through a few photos from the last Thanksgiving I spent at home. Everyone looked so healthy. I miss then. I know I wasn't in a great place then, I know that is was right before everything fell apart, but it was a beautiful time. The weekend was unseasonably warm. I remember sunshine flitting through apple trees. Changing leaves and the smell of fall. It was a good weekend.

My father is dying. I am almost certain of it. The doctors told him he had five to ten years to live, and in about two months it will have been eight. He looked much healthier two years ago. Now he looks, more or less, the way he did before the surgery. There's something about it. The look of someone who is content. Someone you love. Someone who is happy and healthy. It is satisfaction. Not for him, but for me. Now he looks grey. He is depressed. He is dying.

My grandmother's birthday either was two days ago, or will be in two days. It's not really her birthday, as she predates things like record-keeping in rural, late-colonial India, but legally, her date of birth is something to the effect of January 27, 1914. She is somewhere around 93. I think her name might be Khadija, but I'm never sure. My grandmother lived with my family for quite a while before I was born. She used to stay in what was once Asim's room and is now a meaningless, unused space with the most comfortable bed in the house. She left when I was 6 months old. I spent a few days with her when I was fourteen. It didn't mean much to me. I don't know if anything means much to her.

Asim and my grandmother used to wrestle.

I am convinced that she will bury us all. Not literally, since she pretty much has nothing to do with us, but I honestly cannot imagine the woman dying. Sometimes I wonder if this might be the case with my father. He wants to die. Really spends his days waiting for that moment to come upon him. But it's fatalism. He lives for death, and so he dies. He doesn't live at all. Just dies. But what if it takes him a long time? Losing him will be hard. Not losing him might be harder.

I am at a loss.

One Shoe On, One Shoe Off.

And waiting to see what happens. Will I pick my shoe up off the floor, or will I let the other one drop? What I really want is for someone to come along and help me put my shoe back on, maybe even pull me up off the table and make me take a few steps. I need help. I need someone to be here. I need someone to ask me the right questions and push me to give the real answers and to be here, with me, when I fall apart.

I keep waiting for something. Waiting for the next little good thing. Waiting for this person to visit or that person to write or for some little task to be accomplished. Thinking it will help. Thinking it will change me. Thinking that the pain is going to go away. It doesn't go anywhere. It's always here. Always. It won't leave. I can't remember what it feels like to be happy. I can't remember what it feels like to not know that I would wake up the next day, or the day after next, feeling like my soul was being torn from an open wound in my chest. How's that for emo? Shit. Why didn't I get this over with when I was a teenager? Not age appropriate at all.

I remember one year... I think it was my seventh birthday, all I wanted was for my dad to be home. I didn't care about a party, or gifts, or cake. All I wanted was for him to spend the entire day with us. Alright, that's a lie... I also wanted him to wear his white dress pants and white and grey plaid shirt so that we would match, and I would possibly feel as happy as I appear to be in that photo taken back when I was four or five, at the Ijaz's during one of those sweet summer barbecues. But hey. I was seven. I didn't understand things like seasonal clothing, or middle-aged men letting themselves go, or the inappropriateness of white pants in most situations.

Or heartbreak. Dad went to the store that day.

I feel like I'm climbing up a mountain of sand that just keeps rising. It's near impossible to get my footing, and every time I sink down to my knees, exhausted and disheartened, I look up to see tonnes. Millions of years of life, bones and shells and god knows what, reduced to dust and piled before me. Impossible to sift through. Impossible to climb over. Waiting for the next warm breeze to come along so it can fall, cascading over itself, rushing to engulf me, warm from the sun, heavy as it buries me.

Some days I can't help but want to give up. Give in to the misery inside me. Sink down, close off, stop struggling against it. It's just. so. tiring.

I feel hopeless. Please help me.

Get Your Goof On

I have a secret...

I am hilarious.

*Giant. Grin.* No, really. I'm a very happy person. Goofy beyond belief, once you get past the nervousness and the cut through the tension and find me in a place where I am comfortable.

Lately, however, by which I mean since I was about four years old, it has been near impossible to find that place. Thing is, I am tired of living in this itty-bitty shell. The innocent, bright-eyed, sweet person I was born as has not died. She's inside, trapped in a cyst I built to protect her. Today is an exciting day. I've found her, and she is, ever so cautiously, coming out to play.

Tuesday Affirmation: I will play. I will laugh. I will sing. I will nurture myself, and I will heal. Hell, I might even dance, eyes closed, arms in the air, smile across my lips. I'm alive, and I'm better for it.

Good lord, that sounds... so... not... like me. Okay. I'm going to get goofy, but let it be known, I don't want anyone buying me posters with motivational sayings. Or stuffed animals. Or bloody Chicken Soup for the Soul. I am going to get better, and I am going to do it with a sense of humour. Not with butterflies and puppies and touchy-feeliness.

Asim has a habit of telling me that one day some wonderful guy is going to come along and melt away my icy exterior, and everything will be all snuggles and bunnies and cuteness. I have insisted vehemently that this would not happen. I'm starting to think that we're both right. I find it hard to believe that I could ever not be dry-witted and sharp-tongued, as, frankly, I like to bite sometimes. That said, I'm excited to soften up. I will not, however, continue waiting for someone to come save me. I'm saving myself, and I'm doing it laughing.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ordinary

I have days. Some of them are good, some of them are bad. I think I need to treat them all as ordinary. If I can figure out that a day is just a day, I think I might be better able to manage the bad days .

Today was a particularly good day. Last night, before going to bed, I decided today would be a good day. I made a list of things I would do, and although I have yet to complete every task on my list, so far I have been good. If I don't manage the last item... I'll be in a bit of a stitch in terms of important things I need to accomplish in my life beyond the problem, but it will still have been a good day.

Sunday Affirmation: Today I have learned that this thing is not all-consuming. I know how to swim. If it tries to pull me under, I will simply tell it to fuck off. I might need to invest in some water wings, just for days when I am tired, but I can handle it. I believe in my ability to swim.

I am determined to go to bed still feeling upbeat, still feeling like today was a good day. I have not pitied myself today. I've been doing things. Lots of things. Some things that I like, some things that were a bit mundane. The mundane bits were great. I was happy to be doing them, happy that I managed to shake off the lethargy, happy I could make myself function, happy that I forced myself not to dwell on all the shittiness. If I did it today perhaps I can do it tomorrow. And then again the next day, and again the day after that. Learning to live one day at a time is an interesting thing. Takes optimism. And a lot of practice.

Perhaps most importantly, today was a scratch-free day. No, better. Today was an itch-free day. Of course, I still have about five hours to go, but I have a good feeling. I'm not going to start counting days. I'm not doing this AA style, but I figure everyday that I don't get the feeling is a day I can be proud of.

There you go, Sarah. Someone loves you, and you know you can trust her. Next step, everyone else. Git'er done!

Letters to Baby Sarah: Blood-Letting

Dear Baby Sarah,

How are you, love? Me, not so hot. I've been thinking about the blood-letting lately. Quite a bit. Not too healthy. I can't remember how old you were when it started. You were young though, probably younger than even I imagine.

I remember one time, well into the stress bleeding, it was you, your mother, and Asim. In the kitchen. This was after the hospital, I think. Things were good for a while after the hospital, but that didn't last as long as we had hoped. I can't really remember what the circumstances were that day, but I remember an orange towel. And... screaming? Mmmm... no, that's not fair. She wasn't screaming, but she was definitely doing that rueful, hateful bitch voice, with the murderous eyes and sneer that get me all raged-up and pissed these days.

She, of course, blamed Asim, who subsequently felt awful. I remember you thinking, very specifically, "It's not because of Asim, it's because of you."

It's funny how through all of it, we still managed to cling to all the little things that made life normal. It's true, yes, that you and Asim were fighting. Bickering. As a six-year old and a ten-year old, or whatever you were, are wont to do. Sick little thing that I am, I tend to look back on moments like that with this bittersweet, spiteful sort of joy. No matter how much they tried, no matter how hard they fucked with your head, you still knew exactly when they were being fuckers. You knew what made you normal, that it was okay to scream your little lungs out at your brother, not that either of us has ever screamed, ever, and you knew that the things they did were very much not okay. Even then, as a baby, you knew they were unnatural. That was not the way life was meant to be.

That was the first time I realized what was going on. That is wasn't just the dry air, and that is wasn't your fault. The first time it occurred to me that this was something they could take care of if they had bothered, for about thirty seconds, to give a fucking damn. Sadly, you were well on your way to dying by then. I don't know when I started chronicling all their little failures, but this was a moment of beauty. All the blood-is-thicker-than-water bullshit they fed you, and they couldn't be bothered to look for a way to stop-up the blood spilling out all over their fucking home.

Then there was the scratching. You started scratching when you were pretty much already a spectre, but I liked it, so I kept it going. Neither of us really knew what was going on. Why we were doing it, what it meant, why it was happening. But I understand it now. I stopped scratching a while ago, not really, but kind of.

I still sit the way we would, still look for the outlet, but it's just not there anymore. I've had to find other ways to distract myself, to get it out of my system, but the idea is still there.

I started to stop after that time that your father caught me. He didn't know what was going on. Thought it was dry skin. Always the fucking dry air, no? Thought you were stupid. Thought you were stupid. He couldn't tell that you were already dead, but he thought you were stupid. Special, that.

To be honest, I can't really remember scratching after the first time I was caught. Not that any of it was better, or that anything went away. I just didn't want to get caught again. Didn't want to sit there while one of your parents wiped away the blood and tried to salve my legs, thinking I was a baby, thinking I was still you, thinking there was anything they could do to keep you healthy, to protect you.

That was right before things started to get really awful, the last chance for them to do something right, probably. Right before I got serious about it. Right after I figured out just what it was that we had been doing.

I don't know what it is with us and the blood. Something about life and warmth and pain, I'm sure, but it's one of the few things that I can't articulate. Maybe I just haven't thought about it enough, but - ... Oh. Man. I am funny. Who, writing about self-mutilation, says "Maybe I just haven't thought about it enough."? Only me. I am a funny girl. What I'm trying to say, darling, is that I haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet, haven't figured out what it means. It's a question that isn't exactly as pressing as a lot of the questions I have for life, or god, or whoever the fuck else, but it's one of the curiousities that makes us us.

Lately, and this is the part where I get not so good, I've found a new secret. When I left London I abandoned you, and that cost us both a lot. Nearly killed me, and was just another disgusting let-down in the history of Injustices Against Baby Sarah. But, as is generally the case, it caught up to me, and I started looking for an outlet. This is why I want to know what it is about the blood. Part of me thinks that if I could figure out why bleeding seems like such a relief I would be able to beat it. I don't know if that's true, but it beats what I'm doing in the interim. I haven't actually cut myself. Haven't bled myself in years, thankfully, but the temptation has been strong, especially as of late.

Usually it's just a one shot deal. I think it, I tell myself no, I don't do it. There are times, though, Baby Sarah, when I can't get the thought out of my head. So I've started scratching, in a new and different way. This time it's my forearms. Scratch them until the itch goes away, until I feel like I can breathe again, and my neck and shoulders relax a bit. It's good and bad, I guess. Good, in that fingernails are less dangerous than razorblades or whatever I might find in the kitchen, bad in that, you know, healthy people usually just leave their arms the way they find them.

I want to stop, little one. I really do. I'm working on words now. Hoping that writing to you will be enough of an outlet to get it out of my system. From what I can tell, based mostly on Asim, it will never really be gone, but if I can prevent any serious damage, maybe even be mostly happy one day, that's enough for me.

Thanks for listening,

Your Sarah

Letters to Baby Sarah: The Front Door

Dear Baby Sarah,

I've watched you watching that front door. It's gone now. Kicked in, splintered, shipped off to a trash heap somewhere, I'm sure. Do you remember the holographic sticker outside? What did it say? La illa-ha? Assalamu Alaikum? No, you wouldn't know that. You were barely old enough for them to teach you to read it then. Fuck, you weren't even tall enough. I'm guessing the only times you really saw it were when they held you. Do you remember being held?

That door. It was painted a hideous shade of mustard.

You used to stand at the window by the door, mother yelling at you not to tug at the little sheer curtain, waiting to see who would come to see you. Hoping that whoever came would be full of love. I look out that window now and it's empty. The curtain's gone. There's a single dying flower in a faded plastic pot on the sill. You never see the people you love coming to hold you through that window. Not anymore. Sometimes I see people who love me leaving through that window. Mostly I just ignore it.

You've spent hours watching that door. Watching people come in. Watching people walk out. Watching, and waiting, hoping that someone would come sit with you so that you'd never have to be alone. On either side. I started sitting there with you a long time ago, and I never left your side. I still visit you there now, even though you've died.

Do you remember the sun shower? It was your first sun shower. You didn't know it was possible, and neither did I. That was the day we started believing in miracles. You were still in your nightie, off-white silk with ruffled cap-sleeves and brown checks. You loved that nightie, and one day it just disappeared. I remember Asim and Dad being outside, Asim laughing, both of them coming in from the car. You know better though, don't you? Asim was asleep. Your father wasn't home. Your father wasn't home when you started believing in miracles. That is probably a good thing, dear heart.

More than anything, you remember that door at night. You remember watching your father walk out that door. You remember feeling cold. Sometimes there were lights, sometimes there weren't. Sometimes there was a phone, sometimes there wasn't. Asim was always there, even though you don't remember that part. Sometimes he was out, or down, or trying to pick up the pieces, but he was always there, you playing in the back of his mind.

Watching him walk out that door into the dark filled you with the kind of dread no kid should ever know. I remember how you felt. A little sick, a little panicked, cold, trembling, and tensed. I've still got that sickening tension in me. It's really hard to make it go away, yeah?

Remember the last time he walked out into the dark? I remember it. I remember you telling me that you hoped he wouldn't come back. Funny, that. I think - I'm not sure, but I think - that was right around the time you decided to die. He came back, of course, just like he always would, but you weren't there to see it. And then there was the time you left your heart on the kitchen table for him to see when he came in. I had all but taken over by then, but he made sure you didn't have anything left to live on. You don't remember him coming in or out of that door after that night, and neither do I.

That door is gone now, and there's a new pre-fab aluminum door in it's place. Your mother wanted it. Wanted something that gave her a sense of security. It's a joke, of course, because the frame is still just as weak. The thing is, Baby Sarah, he was a fuck. He still is. I see him sometimes. He's probably not going to change, and he might die soon. I hope that when he does he doesn't find you. I hope I find you first, wherever you are.

I'll write again soon, I promise.

Ever yours,
Sarah