You Never Cease To Amaze Me.

Thirteen Years.

July 6th 2004
"Mom and dad don't want me, dad kicked me out because I like boys and girls, daddy doesn't love me. Mommy doesn't either. The police arrested mommy and daddy for kicking me out of the house, I'm only 8."
-Rider Owen Johnson

It has been thirteen years since I've seen the people who gave me my life and took it away at the same time.

Thirteen years since I was nine and roaming the streets alone. Thirteen years since my last name was Johnson.

A stay at home mom, a dad with his own business, and their son.

Their son who the dad had mistaken for a punching bag, because he had gotten tired of hiding the holes in the walls with family portraits.

As if the boys body was the galaxy and the bruises created constellations of stars over his skin.

When he was a kid, "mistake" was the first word used to describe him. It didn't offend him until he realized it was supposed to.

In his bedroom he had a shelve dedicated to his collection of rocks. Rocks that the kids at school would throw at him. Some were bigger than others but they all hurt the same.

Almost thirteen years later and the little boy in the family pictures has a different middle and last name. 

He's traded his collection of rocks for books and he refuses to hang picture frames on the walls.

He rarely uses the word "mistake" because he knows every synonym.

When his friends suddenly spark a conversation about child abuse at a casual dinner he can't help but excuse himself from the table.

When people ask to see pictures of him when he was young he has to start at nine and lies when asked how he is doing. He's terrible. Yet, he says he's alright.

He's a liar, just like his father.

The thirteenth anniversary of the end of his abuse but the beginning of him wanting to die every fucking day.

He still wonders what they're up to. If they're still even together. If they still remember that they had a son.

He can't even step foot in Oregon. He wonders if they still live in Grants Pass, if so, then he wonders if they still live in the same house. If they've changed his room. If his rock collection is still perched on his shelve.

He, of course, loves the people who adopted him and have earned the title, "mom and dad" but he feels empty.

It's been thirteen years.

Thirteen drunk,lonely,and painful years.

Cheers to many more.