Illuminating The Darkness

As I peer through the rain drops collected on the window. I think back to the memories of my life, and I come to realize that it doesn’t hold many happy ones. Ones that light up the darkness. Darkness. Not the kind that you can light a match to illuminate it so that you are able to see, to gain your bearings and regain focus. No. This is the kind of darkness that steals your vision even when your eyes are left fully open.

Leaning further to the side and pushing my cheek to the window to feel the cool glass against my it, I close my eyes and exhale. I’ve been in this room for five years now. This is the only space that is anywhere close to mine. Five years. One thousand eight hundred and twenty-six days. How do I know that? Easy because underneath this cushion I’m sitting on is an extensive list of tally marks, marking each and every day of being trapped in this gilded cage. Trapped in a marriage I never asked for or expected to be in. I understand the normal person would be grateful to live in a mansion with house staff and a person chef cooking them three meals a day. I look over to the closet sitting across the room that I know is full of designer clothes and shake my head. The thing about it is I did not ask to be here. Never even in my wildest dreams did I think I would be in a situation like this to begin with. Yes, situation, that’s what this is, or maybe, perhaps arrangement is a better word. Because that is what this marriage was arranged only, I had no prior knowledge. No warning no real kind of introduction to my intended. No nothing of the sort. Whereas most prearranged marriage couples know from an early age they will be married off and to whom I had none of that.

No my introduction to the thought of marriage was on my eighteenth birthday as I sat alone in my old room were the linoleum flooring was peeling up in the corners and the walled stained with the nicotine for the cigarettes my parents smoked, sitting on a threadbare mattress resting on the floor in the corner. I was holding the cupcake I managed to steal from the store on the end of the street. Ready for another year of singing happy birthday to myself and then curling up into myself with only a then blanket wrapped around me.

I never did get to sing to myself or even eat my cupcake. No. Instead the door to my closet of a room was kicked open and guys dressed in suits entered grabbing me under my arms and forcefully bringing me to my feet. When the darkness is at its thickest, I can still feel their hand tight around my arms and the loss of traction under my sock covered feet as I try to push back against them in a feeble attempt to keep them from dragging me out of my room. I can still see the look on my father’s face as he peers at me for the run down ripped up couch beer in hand line of what his favorite white power on the milk crate with a piece of wood across the top in front of him.

“Dad what is happening?” I try to keep my voice steady, but I am panicking. Why is he just sitting there allowing them to drag me closer and closer to the front door? As we pass him, I manage to look over my shoulder just in time to see him lifting his head from the table and smile at me.