small, then slightly bigger

As I was driving home I thought of myself. Well, the smaller me. I'm not sure i know her very well. I've always avoided her. I'm not quite sure what I would find there and so I leave her alone. I've written a few poems in the past and I feel like I got a glimpse... of what she feels like but it was too much, then, so I put my pen down and put my notebook away. Tucked inside a drawer, hidden, in the dark. I don't like the dark much. She doesn't either. I do know that.

I was 8 when this all went down. Eight is very small.
I wore my hair in pigtails then. It was long.
I didn't have my two front teeth for a very long time.
I liked wearing those plastic high heel dress up shoes. The ones if you started walking too fast you could hear them, click, click, click, just like a grown -up.
I remember getting a 3-story Barbie Dreamhouse. I had a lot of Barbies.
I loved Starwberry Shortcake.I had a Starwberry Shortcake record even and my Grammy made all the dolls for me. I had them for the longest time. I don't know where they went.....
I remember fishing with my Grandpa.
My Grammy used to read me bible stories.I was fascinated by her. My mom didn't wear make up much back then. She was plain with long, dark hair, and well, was kind of hippie-ish. But my Grammy, wow, she was so glamourous to me with her bright pink lipstick that covered her lips so thick that no matter how many Diet Cokes she drank, the pink stain on the can never faded. Her hair was always done and her skin was so soft. She worked at the cosmetic counter in a department store so she always smelled good; a heavy,woody, smothering scent but I liked it. My Grammy always called me "Darling" but she would say it all draggy and high-pitched,
"Daaahhh-ling", and then she'd throw her head back and laugh. She was like a movie star to me. I loved her.

I haven't seen or spoken to her since I was 11.

Eight is very small. Very small indeed.

Amazing that all these memories include them, her, him. I lived with my grandparents then. Well, my mom and I both did. It was a big house, two stories with five bedrooms and an attic upstairs. It was a brick house and it had white pillars in the front. (Funny, I just realized how much I hate pillars on houses. I do. I hate them. I think they are pretentious and fake. As if the white pillar signifies how rich and grand the people inside must be.) The house had a large backyard with a garden, and a large oak tree that held a swing made of a wooden board and two lengths of white rope. There was a birdbath. And lots of leaves. This is where I lived. In a house that looked like it was the home to a stable, noble family. But it wasn't. It was a house full of nightmares and secrets and lies. It wasn't just my house of horror. No, this was passed down from another generation. I wasn't the only one. I'm just the only one that wanted to leave.

It took me a little bit but I did. I left. I only went back once. Not to that house but I realized it's not the house that brings the badness. No, the people that live in it get all the credit for that. The second house wasn't any better, even when I was promised it would be.

Eight is very small. Eleven is only slightly bigger.

Funny how age doesn't really seem to matter. When the fear is there, it grips so tightly, so completely, that it squeezes the... movement... right out of you.

Yes, eleven is only slightly bigger. Fortunately for me, it was big enough.

It was the one time I didn't protest. I didn't say no. I didn't cry or scream. I just sat there for what seemed like an eternity but really was only seconds. I stared at him, part of me unwilling to believe it was starting to happen again, and the other part of me not surprised at all. That part was shouting, yelling, stomping her feet at me to, "GET UP! You knew this would happen, you knew he would not change. You knew it! Don't just sit there, GET UP!! You are not 8! We are not 8!" And the kicker, "No one else will help you." That's when he kissed my mouth. With his hand up my shirt. While he apologized and said he would never hurt me.

I got up. I didn't just get up, I jumped up and out, away from him so he could not touch me. I ran to the kitchen and I grabbed the knife.

It was a very big knife.

Just the kind of knife a girl at 11 may need to keep herself safe.
Because she knew no one else would help her.
And I did. I kept myself safe that day and each day since. I have been safe from him. From them. They cannot touch me. Not physically anyway.

The rest of it... well, I'm working on it.

I cried while I wrote this and thought of my Grammy. I haven't thought of her in a very long time. I don't know how the 33 year old me feels about her just yet, but the 8 year old me, she loved her. Very much.