For Noah

I have your jumper and it still smells of you
I have our pictures and I still look at them sometimes
I didn't tell my friends about you
You were right it was best

I miss you

I miss you holding my hand and picking me up
I miss your lips and the way you'd jump out at me from behind corners
I miss your music and all the spontaneous things we'd do
You used to let me ride on your bike at the back

I'd cling onto your sides for dear life

As I cling onto the pictures now
Scattered around me I produce my lighter
Smoke engulfs me
You're right it was for the best

I want to say thank you

For the good and the bad
For the light and the dark you showed me
For your warm hands which fitted so perfectly into mine
I'm sorry I fell short of perfection

I still listen to your voice- it makes me smile

But somedays you have to make your own sunshine
Little by little I'm growing
You may have up-rooted me,  but I found new soil
And I am growing;
Stronger
Bigger
Better

I miss you. But not enough to call. Not enough to want to change.
Sorry.

When it rains it pours;

You are there bent over, on the floor breathing
in and out heavily;
I am here, standing, looking, watching
I am powerless.

'Breathe' I say
but you don't. So I breathe for you.
in and out. Again and again.

But you're still there, doubled over, shaking

A matter of steps away I call to you. But to you I'm so far away
My call is like a drop in the ocean miniscule.
But I call again and suddenly it rains
pours

And the downpour gets through. You breathe slower basking in the rain
but then it stops falling I don't get through anymore.
Powerless.
Because I am there and you are here.

Spoilt Brat

30th of December 2017

She slurs her words slightly "I just find it interesting how when your mum calls you run upstairs like a little dog to answer the phone but when we do it goes straight to voicemail." Her chubby left hand, clasping the wine bottle I watch as she drags it back and forth over the countertop. "Truth is you don't care about us or your Dad can't even be bothered to answer the voicemails we leave you." Sharply she breaths in, and I begin to feel my eyes tearing up. But i won't. Or at least I think I won't. But I do. They fall out of my eyes silently like cannonballs they elegantly flop to the floor. "There's is no point crying you're just a spoilt brat." I want to say it. But I don't, I don't scream back at her for abandoning me at 5 years old to a foreign country with a different time zone millions of miles away. I don't tell her that seeing my Dad and his family once every two years for two weeks doesn't equate to me being a spoilt brat nor make me selfish. She goes on like this for a while, in the same manor while I just sit and take it, swallowing every one of her poisonous words like the selfish brat I am.

Then with her short stubby legs she walks away "Harrison come to bed"
"No" my half brother just sits there, a look of shock in his eyes "I  said come to bed." But he doesn't and I sit the shaking and crying like an new born while my father looks on. He sits there, with nothing on his lips and no anger in his eyes. It takes an 11 year old to ask him to ask me if I'm okay "Dad, say something to your daughter" he shrugs "She's just jealous Bells." Jealous of what? A 16 year old kid living in a shitty neighbourhood who comes to visit for two weeks and gets a glimpse into their first class lifestyle whilst hoping not to ask for too much. I never ask for anything as I'm terrified of them turning around and accusing me of being that God awful word, spoilt. I can never be my mum's worked hard to give me as much as she could- which is nothing by their standards. He just sit there and lets Harrison do all the talking "She shouldn't talks to you like that" he hugs me, "I'm going to go talk to her make her say sorry"
"No" my lips part "No, don't I'm gonna go to bed and we'll sort this out in the morning."
I tip toe up the stairs to the first floor avoiding her door I make it to mine. Run in getting into bed I hear the shouting begin. "Apologise to my sister, if you don't you not my mum!" my ears prick up as a hear the bottle drop softly onto the carpeted floor. More muffled yelling. My tears have dried up my hand comes to my face wiping away the memories from tonight. Then, I realise something I've never realised before. I see my step-mother for who she really is, not a glamourous go getter with a fabulous lifestyle and top job in a foreign city a long way away from my home. I see her for a scared woman jealous of her husbands biological daughter who is forgotten about except for 2 weeks ever 2 years. An wine guzzling woman intent on being perceived as vivasious and not a raging alki. "Everyone's fucking mental" I whisper comfortingly to myself I roll over and shut my eyes as my door flies open. "I'm not gonna knock because you wouldn't let me in" she dumps herself and her glass down on the end of my bed. "You know I love you" I sob. Why am I so week around her? Why do I fall apart so quickly?

She never once says sorry- but she tells me all that is wrong with me. How I'm not go getting enough and I conform too much to what people want from me, how I let my mother control me and I'm not my own person. All complete and other shit. It gets to me though, in that moment I sob a little louder my tears feel like troops marching on top of my mascara stained face. The door flies open again "You're a big girl put you pyjama's on and go to bed stop attention seeking" she shouts
"Please can we talk about this in the morning" I beg
"NO!" she goes on but soon that drunken haze spreads from her eyes to her brain, so she forgets why she's here and what she's doing. Slamming the door I'm left in the pitch darkness. Alone and shaking. the troops subside and my phone buzzes.
We love you so much xxx. But that's a lie and she knows it.

Finding Rhoda

I had waited 336 days 1008 hours and 5040 minutes for a letter. A crisp white letter that would tell me who I was, who I am. My fingernails were scratched and bitten in anticipation, my thumb danced around the mouth of the envelope never quite staying still enough to have the will to do what I wanted, needed. The morning light invaded the darkness soon it would be morning and the neighbours would grace us with the true meaning of noise. There wasn't much time it ticked by lethargically somehow racing ahead of me. My fingers attacked the letter, ripping it into small shreds revealing a small neat letter staring up at me. I unfolded the edges Mother: Liliana touji Father: N/A no desired contact. That was it the cold hard truth raining over my perfect fantasy. That is who I am, no desired contact it felt like a huge stamp sitting on my head. I'd waited 18 years for what? To merely comprehend that my mother hadn't even left a phone number. Nothing. She didn't want me- not because of a reason or practicality. She didn't want me, clearly there is nothing there. No desired contact.

They found me in a church's charity bag swaddled in blankets and pre- loved toys blissful, peaceful the happiest I'd ever been, ever will be. Unaware of what had just happened. There was no note, no explanation just a birth certificate scrunched at the bottom carelessly forgotten.

My gut twisted like a cement mixer- moving around and around; it doesn't define you, it can't. Accept the sad thing was it did it told me the most important thing about myself. I was not applicable.

"Rhoda?" I shoved the letter into my back pocket. Elliot stared up at me with those round saucer eyes I knew so well. "You hungry?" he nodded. I heard the floor boards creek as he ran to the back porch.  I walked into the kitchen and began warming the stove i pulled an oatmeal packet out and thrust it into a pot on the stove. "Tap, tap, tap" I looked up "Thom you can't keep doing this it's"

"None of your business" he smirked 

"But-" I switched the clasp "What if I told?"

"No one would believe you, you're just that foster kid we took in I'm there son, get real Rhoda". He slammed his left leg on top of the counter tipping the oatmeal all over the floor.

"Thanks sis" 

"Don't call me that" and just like that he left me standing around thick stodgy oatmeal covering every inch and corner of the tiled floor.

"So no oatmeal"Elliot asked 

"No do you want some toast" I turned to wipe the counter tops.

"Rhoda"

"mmhmm" 

"Do you think Miss Jenkin's would mind if I called her mummy"

"Elliot I don't think Miss Jenkin's has a motherly bone in her body".

I hadn't seen much of Miss Jenkin's since I'd arrived at their residents. They had a young baby who often stayed up stairs and a teenager my age, Thom who cursed my every breath. I'd met Mr Jenkin's a handful of times as he was all ways away on business. Elliot was fostered 6 months prior to me, and we were to eat our meals on the back porch, unless there was company we would sit on the table. We weren't to bother the family and the only time we were allowed out with them was to mass on Sunday and Wednesday. That was that. We  were medals to be worn to church and left on the shelf when there was no need for us. It was sick and it taught both me and Elliot one of the most important lessons in our short lives. Not every person who goes to church is good.

The letter in my back pocket crunched, as though it wanted to be heard. I sighed and pulled the blinds open. Light flooded the room with vibrant colours of pinks and deep reds, vast peaches and yellows illuminated my every breath, my hair shone golden through it all. The once dark counter tops gleamed in the morning sun. The light rays twirled through the kitchen pirouetting around the pots and pans. My body reflected every sparkling part of me. I knew who I was- all along I was Rhoda just me and I would define myself no letter could do that, and surprisingly that was okay. Well for now anyway.       

Shadows of my younger self

Ever since I was a young child I can remember my old flat in Wauping. I can remember the warm smell of bread and the apple tree I passed on the way home from mass.

My favourite memories are of picking flowers from my neighbours window box. I remember being blinded by the cascading light through the blinds hitting me sharply in the morning- I remember the warm evenings and clod mornings the shadows of the trees that haunted me at night.

I loved my old home, I miss it the loud door bell or noisy traffic late at night. I miss my life of what could have been. Who I could have been. I miss all the memories that still live in in the hard cream walls that whisper to people of the past late at night once the road it silent. The shadows of my younger self still run through the living room, laughing, smiling through the window- getting lost on the stairs. When you leave a place you physically leave but your spirt stays there a small imprint of your past stuck in the walls.

When I am older I will go back there and walk through what once was. Recalling all the happy memories and faces.

Blackbirds

It's funny how in an instant everything can disappear. In a second, a breath, now. When most people die it's unexpected, of course there are some instances when you know you're going to die;
I think thats worse- knowing you'll leave the word soon but unable to do anything, change, scream. Is there even a Paradise Hell?

I know I'm going to die now. I knew it soon as the first gunshot echoed through the hall ways lingering in the stiff air. Three shots in a row.

I'm not going home tonight. I shall die at my school desk, watching the lights slowly disappear in my class mates eyes if I'm not first.

They will obliterate our school walls, rip up our school books- shatter our dreams. Set our bodies on fire as a warning to the other girls. In the name of what? God. Maybe I should have listened to their warnings, but I thought somehow  I deserved a better life something different. Father says 'Women aren't ornaments to be left on a shelf and dusted every so often. Ultimately nothing. I remember back to the days when father would write about what life was like really here. Before he was flogged on the square like a animal, he doesn't write anymore nor speak, just sits in the door off our house staring at the black birds the fly past. One day I'll fly for real across the mountains over the azure lakes to freedom, where it's rife and I can learn.

My Neighbour once told me of a thing called a 'democracy', his house burnt down, I don't have a neighbour any more. The funny thing is I never thought it would end up this way. But us girls don't think because it is impossible for me to know anything. The window panes rattle, people are preying but I just want to be with my thoughts with what little time I have left.

So many questions, when I'm gone I will miss so much my brother growing up. My mother growing up the stomps travel through the hallways. My heart and my breathing becomes so loud I cannot control it.
What will I meet after I'm gone?
"Bang"
I guess now I will know.

The fundamentalist

I pull my hair into two tight plaits twist the round and pin them to the back of my head. I wish I had short hair but it is a sin to cut it. I must let it grow, cascade down the stairs and into the orchard below me. One day when I am free I'll cut it all off and let it go in the breeze I'll let our father see it I don't care for it as long as I'm free.

"Charlotte" my mother yells. I pull myself off my mattress, I share it with my two other sisters I pull of my night gown and begin to change, I hate all of my clothes there all pink, purple or green I despise all those colours. I've never been beyond the hills in the distance, I never been anywhere apart from town and church.
"Charlotte" and the sky, one day I'll run so far I'll reach the deep blue sky
"Charlotte" I shut my window briskly sometimes I don't think properly what if someone saw me thats a sin, mind you everything I do is a sin well thats what mother says at-least
"Charlotte" the door handles rattle I could make a run for it but it would just make it worse in the end. "Charlotte you un-godly child you will burn in the hell fire if you do not obey me even the lord our God commanded you hellish child" my head hurts so does my back I think she used the wooden spoon this time. "go" I walk down the bleak stairs I left my coat in the room but I don't want to go back there. Ever since Warren james was sent beyond the hills things have been tense for all of us Mother says if we pray he will come back to us. I don't want him to come back he said he was the closest to God so we must treat him so, on our desks sit printed pictures of him- smiling I know what he really did - who he really was so I don't know why he's smiling that awful look on his face I hate him but I can't for he is our father.

Once I was to run to the hills with my older brother Thom we had a plan we were to run in the night but he lost himself as my mother put it and I've never seen him since sometimes in our community people go missing and never come back they are simply forgotten lost in time, all evidence any trace is burnt.  I envy the birds anything that is brave enough to run to the hills to taste the breeze. There has to be something better than this. Surely the men from the hills came from somewhere there simply can be no where. I long to cut my hair to watch it dance in the wind to run barefooted in the grass scream at the top of my lungs without punishment but instead I sit at my school desk preying always for forgiveness. The lords prayer starts but I don't join in. How can they're be a God, who is real. Why have we never seen him, I don't understand. The bells ring and I walk out the door. It's only break but I can't stop there I have no control, all I need to know is whats beyond here what lies on the other side. "charlotte" someone yells I run my boots scrape the floor and I undo my hair it flow in the wind, moving this way and that I've never let it out in the open. It feels nice different, new. I like change not so much tradition. The grass gets thicker, my hair gets wilder and suddenly I reach the top of the hill, a wooden fence is the only thing that separates me from knowing. My dress rips my hair tatters my anticipation rises. Then I see it, what has been hidden from me my whole life, a whole different world that I didn't know even existed, I'm so far away but closer than I've ever been I need to know I have to understand what God really is. "Charlotte!" I see my Aunt screaming at me from over the fence I have to go now. I'll be burnt, forgotten, lost but I'll be free.

There is more for me out there I'm sure of it there is more than just being submissive and loving. Behind the hills lies my old life, beyond my new.