visible

Am I invisible?  
Can I write myself  
into the world?  
Like I could be someone  
... like I could be something  
more  
 
Twenty six years of therapy  
and I still haven't learnt  
to love myself  
though I can re-parent myself  
on the days I remember how  
 
Last night I told someone  
about the time my mother  
slapped me when I was fifteen  
and I disappeared for hours  
on our small country property  
until the cold called me back inside  
and I don't remember if she apologised  
(she probably didn't)  
but I remember the sounds  
of her calling out to me  
panicked in the dark  
and deciding that there was power  
in being silent  
in being unseen  
 
What I didn't follow on with  
was how she didn't slap me again  
until I was nineteen  
after I was admitted to hospital  
for trying to kill myself  
 
In that moment I hated her  
I hated her anger and her pain  
and I hated that I was still invisible  
the darkness that called me  
so far down on the list of things  
that mattered  
in comparison to her fear  
and she slapped me  
for being "selfish"  
instead of embracing me  
and telling me we could get through this  
that my pain mattered and we'd get me help  
 
I often think about how different  
I would be now  
if I had been surrounded by people  
who knew how to love me  
because children don't know how  
to love themselves  
without someone to show them  
 
And now I'm staring down forty  
and I'm only just figuring out  
how to love myself  
and let people love me  
without breaking them  
with all the ways I hate myself