System Of A Downstairs Suicide

I wake up late, every day, trying to hide from the world. My mother, as she does every morning, was banging wildly on my bedroom door,

Yelling her usual, “Get up! Grab a brush and put on a little make up!”

I groan, my mother and her obsession with appearances was getting out of control.

I didn’t want to leave my room to meet her judging gaze, because once I did it was always the same.

I do as she says, however, for if I did not I was at risk of any number of her various punishment methods. A push down the stairs, a hand on the stove, a back hand to the face, whatever she can get away with when she catches me off guard.

I run the brush through my snarled and hair and cover my skin with cover up a shade too dark, in hope that maybe, just maybe, it’ll help cover my scars; help fade away the shakeup.

After being content with what I saw in the mirror, I undid the three locks on my bedroom door and met my mother’s irritated face. When she first came to my door in the mornings she was sweet, friendly almost as she cooed her good mornings, but as I opened the door it was like a switch flipped and all the hatred she harbors is hurled towards me. She suffers from bi-polar disorder, if you couldn’t tell, and as a result when she finds herself in one of those dark spaces she often visits, things can go a little awry. Technically, people that suffer from this condition are supposed to have something like euphoric highs to balance out their lows, but I don’t believe that. She must experience those while I’m away at school. I always hear her friends gush about how sweet she is, about how level-headed she is. If only they knew; if only they experienced the hell I went through as stepped through the door every morning, and as I came home every night.

As I look in her eyes I could see her hatred smoldering, she looks at me like she looks at herself, a vision of imperfection. I’ve never been one to care for looks because I am not pretty, I didn’t have satin hair or bronzed skin or eyes that sparkled. But I didn’t mind because I was intelligent and thoughtful, and my paintings could blow anyone out of the water, but she couldn’t see that, she just saw my mistakes.

“Why didn’t you leave the keys upon the table?” She screams, froth flying from the corners of her mouth, you’d swear she was rabid. I started to speak, but was cut off as she got in my face. “Oh here you go, creating yet another fable.” She always thought I was lying, maybe it was a guilty conscience or something, I’ll never know.

Her rant continued and I grew tired, because it was the same thing every day, the same complaints and inquiries. I try my best to cheer her up and bring her back to me but evil has its grasp on her heart. Still, every morning I ask if she wants to do my hair and make-up, try to bring her back to those teenage years she desperately wants to relive, but more often than not it just reminds her of what she is not, and she is plunged into the pool of hatred she drowns in every day. “You just had to take forever and grab a brush and put on make up.”

“But you wanted me to….”

“Shut up Sue, you can’t hide anything, you need more make up that ugliness will shake anyone up.”

“I thought maybe you’d want to.”

“So why didn’t you leave the keys on the table? Because you wanted to? You just looovvveee seeing me struggle every morning in search for them don’t you?”

It was a stupid question, one I’d answered on countless mornings before, the keys were never lost, they were always on the table under a magazine or in plain sight; I think she just enjoys yelling at me. So I just walked past her as she huffed and puffed along after me. I’ve learned that ignoring her and complying is the easiest way to get out injury-free. This morning, however, something else had rubbed her the wrong way and my failure to respond ended in a heavy shove into my side. My mother was a petite woman, but she could be a force of nature. As she collided with my side, I went tumbling down the set of stairs that branch off from the hallway. I cried out as I hit the concrete wall that dictated the end of the stairs, and gasped for breath as sharp pains shot up and down my leg. I tried to pick it up with no luck, it was broken, or at least sprained, much to my dismay.

I heard a cackle from above and watched her slink away, proud of herself. Sometimes I wonder if she birthed me at all, how else could one have such hatred for their child.

No one would ever trust in it, but they still probably wouldn’t miss my plain face if I took myself from this world. And the one that drove me to it, the only person I hope it would effect, would be my once angelic mother; who now deserves no better than six feet under. The worst part of it all is my father has left me here with this. I suspect he unearthed the evil that he had married, and got the hell out of here as fast as he could.

Hell, that’s what I would do.

Except I’d take my infant daughter with me, instead of leaving her in the clutches of satin.

Oh, father, into your hands I would have commended my spirit. But you have forgotten me. Why have you left me here to bask in the wake of her self-hatred? I wonder if he remembers me, remembers my name.

But I know it’s no use wishing.

His eyes are oblivious me.
His thoughts has forgotten me.

And his heart has forsaken me.

I’ve been down here for a few hours now, my leg still broken and my mother still not having returned. I’ve crawled to the run down couch in our basement and prop myself up. I’m done, I’ve been done I just didn’t have a way out. But now I know that I cannot escape her. If I get away, her memory still haunts me, her teachings (more like tellings) will stay with me until death, I’ll forever be scarred.

Or she’ll kill me, if I don’t kill myself first. I begin to cry with this thought. My leg is still bent awkwardly, swelling up around the broken bones. It’s hurt for too long now and I am numb, numb to my physical pain because my mental pain has taken over. I hate myself, the girl she has made me become. Broken and scared in my own home. I crawl to the bathroom, prop myself on the edge of the tub. I turn it on and let it fill. I’m just taking a bath, nothing serious, I want to still be pretty for her, my mother. I take a little blue bottle out of the cabinet and swallow the dozen, or hundreds I don’t really know, baby blue capsules inside. I close my eyes as I sink into the water. And as the warmth begins the take hold, I think to myself that this is right.

My mother drove me to this, my guardian angel.

I trust in my self righteous suicide,

But I cry because some angels deserve to die.