TAKE A TRIP WITH ME THROUGH THE WOODS TO SIT BY THE FIRE. I HAVE SOME TWISTED TALES I’D LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU. FROM EACH THEME, THREE TWISTED TALES WILL EMERGE. ENJOY.
ABUSE CAN TAKE ON MANY FORMS. BELOW ARE THREE TWISTED TALES THAT EXPLORE THIS THEME. ENJOY.
Abuse
Just Like My Mother
Every time I get so close, I find myself pulled back, and to say that it’s frustrating would be an understatement.
I saw myself at the finish line holding the gold medal in my hand, and at that exact moment, I heard her voice telling me just how stupid I was.
She never missed an opportunity letting me know how I was never going to amount to shit in my life.
Or how I would end up a teenage mom just like my mother.
I remember her yelling that my curves would become a dumpster dive for the guilts and sins of men—just like my mother.
You see, my mother was once so beautiful that everyone in town called her the Black Barbie to my pops Ken.
Standing at five foot seven and always in six-inch platform heels, my pops called her his wild stallion.
My mother kept her hair poofed to perfection just like Peggy Bundy, with the snatched waist to boot.
Yeah, she was a fox, they would say, and she drove any man she met wild with possession.
That pretty privilege led to a life of never having to pay a single bill.
Threesomes while playing in the snow with my pops became her vices.
Being so in love that they couldn’t think without each other to trying to slit each other’s throats led to a shift.
These days she hangs around the boulevard doing whatever she can to score another hit to numb the pain of losing what once was.
Pops lost it all, so there were no more expensive fur coats and getting hyper off the nose candy. Now it was tattered flannels and missing teeth while searching for purple caps.
My love ran deep, so though I stayed embarrassed, I stayed close for anything she needed.
How I walked—talked...it all reminded my Grandmaw of the daughter she lost.
I guess this is why I was always a stupid bitch to her.
I fell short of pleasing the misery that dwelled inside of her.
I sacrificed my childhood to make her happy without thinking twice.
All I ever wanted was her love and acceptance, but I don’t believe she knew how to give something that she had never experienced herself.
She never amounted to much in the eyes of her mother, and once I grew to understand this, I gave up.
Every time I ran away, she knew just how to find me and convince those around her that I needed to return home.
The last time, I ran deep into the woods to live off-grid so that she would never be able to find me.
Before I left, I placed her name in a bag of piss and froze it, freezing her in time.
A ritual I had picked up from a cousin when I spent summers down in Memphis.
I had no intentions of ever thawing her out, and I’d be damned if she got to me again.
Years went by, and not a peep.
Yet, her shadow still lingers.
Every time I get so close to crushing my goals, I hear her whispering that I will never be shit—just like my mother.
NM
Shelley
“Can I go outside and play with my friends?” I could hear Shelley ask her dad.
She wasn’t allowed to hang out with us much since her mom died.
It’s been over seven years, and all her dad does is keep her locked away like she is Rapunzel or some shit.
I sometimes sneak to sit underneath her bedroom window to talk about how my day went so that she wouldn’t feel alone.
Shelley once told me that the main reason her dad keeps her in the house is to keep the boys away.
Her mom became pregnant with her at fourteen years old and had to drop out of school to work whatever jobs would hire her at that age.
Times had become so rough for her mom after being kicked out onto the streets for having Shelley that she became desperate.
That’s when they met Tony.
Tony was a hustler from the northside of town, and it was rumored that he worked a few young girls over on North Avenue.
Milwaukee is a small yet big city where everyone knows your name.
And when it comes to pimping out women, professors call it the Harvard of Pimp Schools.
Shelley’s mom became one of its top students.
It afforded them a lovely home on the good side of town, and that’s how we met.
Shelley and I became best friends right away, sharing our dolls and stories about the ghosts that lingered over our beds in the night.
One night I snuck out of bed to visit Shelley as I always did.
I sat underneath her bedroom window for what felt like hours, but in reality, it was only minutes.
I could hear what sounded like faint moans.
She always left her bedroom window open, making it easy to peer through.
That night I saw Shelley's naked body wrapped in her dad’s embrace.
In the cold, wet grass, I stood in shock—it all made sense now.
Shelley’s dad wanted her all to himself.
Leaving her room meant that other men would enjoy what he saw as only belonging to him.
She looked just like her mom, and in some sick, twisted way, this made her dad feel like he still had a piece of his dead wife by his side.
I was always curious about how her mom passed, but I was too shy to ask.
My mom used to say that Shelley’s mom was having a steamy affair and that her dad walked in on her.
That afterward, Shelley’s mom went missing.
Her dad griped about how if he had kept his wife in the house.
How she would have never met that other man.
That she would still be here with him.
It didn’t take Shelley long to see it wasn’t fear but control her dad used to lock her away all of those years.
So I wasn’t surprised when I noticed her climbing out of her window at ten o clock that night from behind our living room curtains. reality as.
Pulling her spinner luggage behind her, she noticed me watching.
We waved goodbye.
No one would ever see Shelley again.
But in the dead of night, when I can’t speak and my breathing gets deep, I swear I see her standing in the corners of my room.
Watching me, with her spinner luggage.
With tears streaming down her cheeks.
NM
Onyx Stone
Every night the knocking on my closet door wakes me out of my sleep.
Each time I inch closer to see what it is, the knocking stops.
A few weeks ago is when the sounds began.
The shuffling as if someone is rummaging through my things.
But the moment I swing open my closet doors, no one is there.
I told a few of my friends about it.
Nothing came of it but a few laughs and being told to cut back on watching so much Shudder late at night.
See, I always believed in the spirit realm.
When my favorite aunt BB died, I bought an Oujia board to hear from her.
My mom told me that since I wasn’t trained to do so, playing around with the board was stupid.
I didn’t care—I just wanted to hear from my aunt by any means necessary.
I believe I opened up a portal, and now I hear from anyone who wants to be heard.
Making it difficult to sleep through the night.
Last night was the worst.
At 3 am I heard faint pounding on my closet door once again.
This time when I swung it open, I saw a figure hunched over.
The short loose curls and shapely figure let me know that this was female.
The armpits of her tattered gown were sweaty from all of the sweat.
It was as if she had been running.
Raising out her hand to me, she whispered, “Can you help me?”
I stood in silence—this was a first.
“He’s chasing me,” falling to the floor of my closet, she shrieked, “give me the stone.”
I continued to stand in silence as I followed the pointing of her index finger to the top of my cherry wood dresser.
There sat the onyx stone my aunt BB left me when she died.
She would always tell me that she carried it in her purse to keep the evil spirits away.
That when she was seven years old, a childhood friend passed it on to her.
Ever since that day, the uninvited touches from her uncle Frank stopped.
After five little girls came forward, he was whisked off to jail.
Word spread around the prison yard fast, and his cellmate bashed his head in with a steel pipe.
That inmate was a father of four daughters.
I notice a dark shadow standing behind the hunched-over female as I turn back towards the closet.
“Please! He’s here, and I need your help,” her arms begin to flail like she was trying to get out of someone’s grasp. “Your aunt BB said the onyx stone would help me.”
“My aunt BB?” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.
Was my aunt finally communicating with me?
I felt my blood rush with nervous excitement, and as I ran towards my dresser, I looked back to see that the girl had vanished.
And so did the onyx stone.
NM