limeswithlemons

[limeswithlemons]

a letter

my therapist told me to write you a letter.

a letter to a dead person.

someone who wasn't even really alive to me anyways.

you died on some friday in december a couple of years ago.

the last time i saw you was a sunday.

you asked to see my sister and i alone once i got there. i had been at work and got the call there that you were fading.

we made our mom stay with us. i remember they had a hospital bed for you in your bedroom. you were wearing my granddad's shirt, cut down the middle in the back because you couldnt move to get a shirt on and off.

i held your hand. i listened to the steady thrum of your oxygen machine and the beeping of the other monitors that were checking your vitals. i remember seeing your blood oxygen level was at 82 percent.

your hands were cold. i wrapped your hand in both of mine, close to my chest, so your hand could be warm. i wanted to bring you any amount of comfort. i knew you were in pain and you were slowly drowning.

you explained that you had tried to find the holiday barbie dolls for that christmas. and you explained that you made your husband drive to six different stores in one day all over, trying to find them. you wouldn't--or couldn't--stop apologizing. "i'm sorry, girls. i'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry." i didnt know what it was even for. was it just for the barbies? was it for the years of hell you put us through? i don't guess i will ever know.

you had tears in your green eyes. i had seen you cry before but seeing such a proud, headstrong woman cry while she was lying in a hospital bed, dying, was so different. seeing you that way was so different than i had seen you before in my whole life.

as badly as i wanted to tell you off. to tell you to go fuck yourself for leaving me over and over when i needed you. i couldnt. i couldnt look at your deteriorating body and be cruel. so instead, i helped change your diapers, i put cream in the most vulnerable and intimate of places, i yelled at your sons when they wouldnt stop yelling in front of you. i stood up for you. in a way you had never done for me.

god, i want so badly to hate you and to feel nothing positive at all for you. i want to be so angry and to feel no guilt about it. but i cant. i love you in the way one loves a house they grew up in. except the house i grew up in was constantly ablaze. you were the fire and i was the accelerant. there was no way i could stop you; my mere existence seemed to set you off. a trait you passed down to your oldest son.

how could you have not done anything? how could you have seen me when i was a baby and not wanted to protect me from everything bad in the world? how could you have watched me grow up, being abused and beaten and used by the sons you raised, and not do a goddamn thing? how could you have defended them? and left me. left me, a little kid. a small kid. i was little for my age and defenseless and was always crying out for help and nobody heard me. or worse: nobody listened to me. nobody saved me.

how could you have seen the kid i was and not said "i love you" to that kid? how could you have ignored me for two weeks when you were mad at me? how could you have pushed me away when all i wanted was to be held? how could you have hated me for trying to exist in peace?

[limeswithlemons]

do you ever feel such an intense need to be loved and to be seen and to get comfort but literally nothing can meet that need

[limeswithlemons]

are you even exes if you don’t drunkenly have a heart to heart while hugging almost a year after your breakup

[limeswithlemons]

in another universe,

i dont have to fix what you broke.

i dont have to spend years in therapy undoing what you did to me.

i dont have to be on medication probably for the rest of my life.

i didnt have to grow up before i’d even begun to walk.

i didnt have to spend my days working and my nights crying myself to sleep or staring at the ceiling, wishing i could feel everything but nothing at all.

i don’t want to love you. i’m tired of hating you. i want nothing more than to feel indifferent towards you. i want to forget you exist.

[limeswithlemons]

in another universe, i got to be a kid and play with legos on the living room floor while watching cartoons with my sister on a saturday morning.

[limeswithlemons]

not a day goes by that i don’t think about you.

i miss your laugh, your smile.

but you need space and that’s okay. or at least—it will be okay.

someday, time will heal me.

maybe someday i won’t be lying when i say i’m not in love with you anymore.

[limeswithlemons]

today, september 29, marks 52 days without you.

that's 52 days without your laugh.

52 days without your pranks.

52 days without your jokes that were so terrible that somehow became hilarious.

52 days without your lovely personality.

your welcoming and calming energy.

it's not even been two whole months. i miss you so much that it aches. every breath i breathe hurts.

every dumb science joke i make stings because i know you'd laugh at every single one of them.

at my new job, some of the hand sanitizer stations have memes above them. and they're so dumb but you would think they were so funny.

a job you didn't know about. i hadn't gotten a chance to tell you about it before you died.

i still can't believe it. i still look for you everywhere. i always have a moment of panic but also joy when i see someone who looks like you.

[limeswithlemons]

i find myself standing in front of that dark green door, fingers resting on the handle.

i try my best to notice everything, to commit everything to memory, so nobody can tell me that i don't remember the details correctly.

the paint is peeling, and the stairs are broken. have been for years. probably even a decade now. the third stair up is nearly split in half.

the fake shutters have also been peeling for decades now, and one of them has even fallen off the face of the house.

the yard, with its patchy grass and random mounds of red clay, makes everything look even more run down.

i take a deep breath and open the door. i don't bother knocking: i know there is nobody here. nobody except for the ghosts.

i'm standing in a foyer, two sets of carpeted stairs in front of me. on my right, the larger of the two, leading up to the main living space; to the left, a path to the two bedrooms, small closet, and the bathroom and laundry room.

i'm frozen in this place. a dark green--or is it dark blue?--bench is pushed against the wall on the left. it takes up most of the space in the little foyer. it's the newest-looking thing in the house. nobody ever touched the thing.

i could go downstairs. downstairs. where i'd find many ghosts. the ghost of my half-brother, who i never met, but constantly think about. the ghost of my father, who would scream and yell at me the little time he'd be there. the ghost of my sister and i, who were killed in that house over and over and over. the ghost of my mother, who was both a victim and an enabler.

or, i could go upstairs. upstairs, where i would find just as many ghosts. the whole place is haunted. it's infested with horrible memories. and i'm sure tons more that have been blocked out. i know i'd find the ghost of my grandmother--more than one, actually. she died in that house. physically. i'd find her yelling at us or giving us the silent treatment for saying the wrong thing. i'd find the ghosts of my father's brothers, who i haven't claimed in years. i'd find the ghost of me being brutally murdered every fucking day at the hands of my dad's brothers. i'd watch as the scenes--the many, many scenes--showcased my tears and screams, and their laughter. laughter. that was their response to the pain they put us through. to laugh about it.

or, instead, i could leave. the one final option. i could keep walking through this house, remembering some things, still blocking out other things. but leaving this house behind, i think, is the only way to try to move on.

[limeswithlemons]

an official c-ptsd diagnosis.

i dont know why i thought it'd feel freeing.

i don't know why i thought i'd feel good about having the words.

all i feel is heavy. and sad. and overwhelmed.

my therapist said that we needed to talk about it so we could actually work through it. and that it explains a lot.

the session was so incredibly uncomfortable. i've never talked about any of it out loud before. it didn't necessarily feel unsafe but it didn't feel particularly safe, either. i couldn't look at her through the whole session. she gave me a printed sheet of paper with the symptoms and had me mark what i related to and what i didn't. when i gave the paper back to her, she said it was what she had thought.

i just hate all of it. i wish i didn't have to deal with this all. i wish i could be normal. i want something to be okay, something to be somewhat normal, something to not be wrong with me. why is everything wrong with me? and why is it all happening at once? i feel like i'm drowning.

i know i have my therapist and i have friends but. i still feel so alone. i still feel so gross. i wish my therapist could just open my head up and fix everything wrong with my brain (or at least mostly everything) and then put it back. and then go from there so i can do the rest of the work. i'm just so exhausted.

[limeswithlemons]

i’m going to miss you for longer than i knew you

[limeswithlemons]

goodbye pt 2

last week, i messaged your account on instagram. i know you're not gonna see it. obviously, you're not gonna see it. i've been checking it to see if anyone has viewed it, though. nobody has. i did say in the beginning of the message that i hoped nobody would see it but apologized in case someone did. i found your youtube channel, too. videos you made about plants and dna structures and everything. it's been nice to hear your voice even when it's about something like that. i'm so glad you posted those videos and i'm so glad i was able to find them.

i miss you so much that it hurts. you're still almost always on my mind. you, and your family. and the accident. sometimes my therapist asks me to tell her where in my body i feel an emotion. my grief is carried so deeply in my chest that i feel like i've been stabbed with it.

i hope, wherever you are, that you're happy. and safe. i know that whatever the afterlife looks like, you're in the best one. i love you. so much. i'm going to spend the rest of my life missing you, but i also want to spend the rest of my life honoring you. thank you, thank you, thank you.

[limeswithlemons]

in another universe,

we sit in camping chairs around a fire.

we’re drinking coffee together and laughing.

we’re reminiscing when we met seven years ago.

we’re talking about new developments in science and the politics of teaching.

we’re showing each other dumb memes and funny videos and you’re telling me about all the pranks you’ve pulled since we last spoke.

but we’re not in that universe.

instead, i lie here at 1:30am, staring at the ceiling.

instead, your name is playing on a loop in my head, and has been since august 8th.

instead, i replay our last interaction, our last hug, wishing i could go back in time and hold on a little longer.

instead, i attended your funeral yesterday. and i laughed so i didn’t sob.

instead, i met your family and heard so many stories about you. and i had never felt closer or farther away from you in those moments.

if there’s an afterlife, i know for sure that you’re in the best place there could possibly be.

[limeswithlemons]

goodbye

you died on the evening of august 8, 2023.

you were somewhere you weren't even supposed to be.

and i want so badly to be angry at you or to be angry at the other driver but i can't bring myself to. i can't be angry with someone because i know you'd tell me not to.

it still doesn't feel real. but it also does, at the same time. i can think of so many other people who should be gone, but aren't. you just shouldn't be gone. and i know part of that is really shitty to say, but it's how i feel.

i haven't been able to stop thinking about you since i got the news. the friend who called to tell me stayed on the phone with me during my whole 30 minute drive home. it was mostly silent. i keep replaying what i think the accident looked like over and over in my head trying to make sense of it. trying to think of any other way this could have been avoided. if you had just left 5 seconds sooner, or later, maybe i wouldn't be crying right now. or maybe if the other driver had gotten stopped by a red light. a red light could've saved your life, and you'd be home right now, with your two little kids and your husband.

you were the first adult i came out to. the first adult who made me truly feel safe. you made ap biology so much fun, even though it was really hard. you always always believed in us. before the ap exam i remember you taking the time to bring us donuts and give us a pep talk, and you were late to school because of that. you always made everyone feel so incredibly special. just your presence was wonderful. i have no idea if an afterlife truly exists, but if it does, you're in the best place possible.

i will never be able to thank you enough for your kindness. and all the memes you sent. you were so funny. and some of the memes you sent were not--but your excitement about them is what made them funny. there's many things i can think of to say that you would absolutely laugh at if you were here, but if i said them to anyone but katie, it'd probably sound terrible and morbid and sad. there are so many more stories that i want to share but i don't have the energy to do that at the moment. i really wish i did. but leaving things open like this makes me feel like there's still a connection to you even though you're gone.

so i guess goodbye, for now. i'm definitely going to continue this letter later on. in the meantime, i'm going to spend some time outside and find some hilarious science memes, while you either hang out in the best place or fuck with everyone down here with your air cannon. the last thing i'll say for now is how much i hope you weren't in pain. you deserved to have a very quick and painless death. if anyone ever didn't deserve to suffer, it's you.

[limeswithlemons]

locking doors.

the sound of it brings me back.

back to his room, that i was locked in, where he turned off all the lights and forced me to watch a horror movie at four years old.

back to his bed, that i was forced to lie on while he did whatever he wanted to me.

back to the hallway, where we all got into screaming matches.

back to the living room, where we'd make pallets with blankets piled onto the floor--which is now a huge trigger for my panic attacks.

back to that goddamn house, which smelled like cat piss and cigarettes.

i can still hear the sound of the oxygen tank hissing. and the cats running around. and the sound of their laughter, which felt like ice picks piercing my heart every time i would breathe.

i can hear the sounds of arguments. the sounds of my grandfather defending himself. and then the sound of the silence when my grandmother decided to ignore him when he said something she didn't like.

i can see the stairs leading outside.

the driveway, where my grandma would put up so many christmas decorations--the candy cane arch, the mechanical statue of frosty the snowman and rudolph. the same driveway and yard that they used to shove us down on. the same driveway where we'd spit blood and spill our tears and scream towards, just in case somebody down there would hear us and do something about it.

the front of the neighborhood, when i was suddenly so incredibly anxious, because i could not stand being in that house. anywhere outside of it meant some sort of safety. not that it wound up being very safe, after all, but it was better than actively being there.

[limeswithlemons]

trigger warning: mentions of sexual assault and physical/emotional abuse

he's engaged.

he's engaged to someone younger than me. and she has a child.

her child--chloe, i think--who is around two years old.

two. she's probably been walking for a few months now.

talking. playing with other little kids.

i was younger than her when he started in on me.

i had just learned to walk when i also learned what boys are capable of.

and i started to grow up. knowing what he and his brother did to me. and thinking it was normal. thinking it was fine, and it happened to everybody, and this was just part of life that i was gonna have to get through.

and when i told my grandmother and she told me that it WAS normal, that it was fine, that "boys will be boys," as if that means boys are entitled to take whatever they want from whoever they want whenever they want. as if that meant that i didn't have a say of anything that happened to my body. MY. body. and the next time i tried to tell her, she told me that i was making it up. it was all fake, and i just wanted attention, and that i was terrible for accusing someone of something like that.

and then watching everybody watching my sister. my sister, who needed that. but i needed it too. i was drowning before their very eyes and they ignored me. they ignored my cries for help and punished me time after time after time for my unruly behavior. because how dare i not be able to act like an adult, at five years old. how fucking dare i throw fits in the store and get into fights with other kids and be so angry, angry because nobody could see me.

and now i want so desperately to save chloe from that. because if he is abusing her, it'll be worse. because he'll be her stepdad. and i want so so so badly to drive to that house right now and knock on the door and tell his future wife what he did to me. and what he did to my sister. and what he did to god knows who else. and tell her, warn her, to take little chloe away before it's too late. before too much of the damage is done.

i can't stop thinking about how little two year olds are. their tiny little hands and their three word sentences and their inability to count to twenty or sing the alphabet in order. and how it is impossible for them to eat without making a mess everywhere. and how they are so so small and they don't know anything except what their caregivers are teaching them. and how if their caregivers are shitty...then that kid is learning to hate themself and the world.

all i want to do is drive there. but i can't go back to that house. i can't go back to that house and walk up and down those stairs. i can't sit at that dining room table. the same one where i finally told someone what they were doing to me. i can't go near that master bedroom. the one where she took her final, very shallow breath. and the bathroom, attached to that master bedroom, that my sister and i would lock ourselves in. and the boys would try to force themselves in and they would laugh and laugh every time my sister and i would scream or cry.

i cannot fathom what it was like for my parents. to see it, to know what was happening to their three year old and their one year old. and to do nothing. nothing at all. they sat us down and gave us rules and told us to never sit on a boy's bed. and to never let them close the door. because bad things would happen if they did. my parents were my sister's age when they witnessed them shoving our faces onto the pavement. and they did nothing. how do you let a child go through that? how do you see that abuse and say, "they're just being kids; they're just playing"? how do you continue to allow this? it was an active choice to do that. an active choice to continue spending time there. an active choice to live with them. to allow the four of us to be home, alone, where they could do whatever they wanted to us and nobody would stop them. or, rather, where the four of us and my grandmother would be there. the same grandmother who would ignore the screaming and the crying and the yelling.

[limeswithlemons]

my therapist said she knows exactly who i am while we were talking about how i don't know myself.

it scares the fuck out of me that she could know who i am when i don't. and it scares me that she notices everything. i'm so afraid to disappoint her when i tell her that i've been having so many setbacks recently. brushing my teeth is hard. showering is even harder. getting out of bed is also really hard.

i feel so incredibly disconnected from everyone and i dont know how to get it back.

my therapist recommended that i try to connect with myself first and see how that goes, but i'm having a really hard time even doing that. how am i supposed to connect with myself? i drove 45 minutes to get away from the light pollution because i wanted to watch the sunrise. instead, it rained, so all i saw were clouds. so i sat in my car, listening to the sound of the rain drops on the roof. it did feel peaceful, and i'm sure it'd have seemed even more so had i not been so fucking sad. everything is just so fucked right now. the only thing that's kind of working is my sleep, but even then, i keep waking up. i keep thinking about how different my life is now and how much it's going to continue to change.

i just want peace. a moment of peace. but every time i get close to that, i do something to fuck it up. because i am so terrified when something is calm. calm is unsafe for me. i was surrounded by so much chaos and when he was calm, i always knew it was a bad sign. i feel like i sabotage everything and i wish i could stop myself but i just get so afraid.

this is all so incredibly frustrating. i wanna go to a rage room, but i don't wanna do something that's going to make me feel closer to him in that way. i can't become like my father. i cant become like him, i cant become like him, i cant become like him.

but what if i already am? and it's already too late for me to turn back? what if everything about me that appears good is actually not good, and what if i end up hurting everybody that i think i care about? and not only will i have hurt them all, but i will also be alone. so deeply alone and terrified. what if i've just manipulated everybody into thinking i'm a kind person and i actually just really really suck? or what if there's only so much improvement that i'm capable of? and if i've reached that, where do i go from there?

it seems so much easier to stop caring. to stop trying to heal. it's just so fucking exhausting to be going down this road. i wanna believe that i deserve to be doing this. i really do. i wanna believe that i deserve peace and calm and kindness and gentleness, but what if i don't? i am spending so much time and money and energy on therapy and unlearning and relearning shit. i just am so fucking tired. i wish my therapist could just open up my brain and fix it and put me back together. but she can't. so next week i'll be sitting across from her on the couch, and i'll tell her about this, and she'll write everything down and look at me with her too kind brown eyes. and she'll try to give me reassurance but i don't know if i'll be able to believe it. and at this point i don't think i'll be able to keep myself from crying.

[limeswithlemons]

you mailed me a letter.

as soon as i got inside and saw your writing on the envelope, my stomach dropped. my heart fluttered.

a million thoughts raced through my mind, some good, some bad.

were you going to tell me how much you still love me? and how you still wish it was me?

or were you going to shatter my heart again, by telling me we could never speak again?

i anxiously went to my room, closed the door behind me, and turned on the fan to cover up the sounds of the sobs i knew were coming.

it was a song. a song you wrote for me. there was a time i cherished those songs, a time i’d download them and listen to them again and again and again. i had every lyric and melody memorized.

but this song, i can’t.

i will never hear you play it for me.

i will only ever be able to imagine what it might sound like with your voice and the way you play your guitar with your beautiful hands.

those beautiful hands who are playing for someone else.

the angelic voice, now singing love songs for someone—i’m not sure i even want to know who.

when i was done reading the song and had mostly cleared my face of most of my tears, i noticed a folded piece of paper. it looked like it had been torn out of a book.

it was a poem about losing someone but eventually being okay. about being so sad about the loss but making it day by day. i wish i could take things day by day but instead, i must take things hour by hour, or by ten minute increments.

it had to have been the last page in the book. sometimes i like that i can find meaning and metaphors in the smallest of things but sometimes it just kills me. because it made me think that this was the last page in our book. the one we spent exactly three years writing. the one i was afraid to write in, when we began, but by the end, i was writing dozens of pages while you merely added sticky notes here and there.