Some prisons don�t have bars. They have children. Children who wake up looking at you like you killed their dog. Children who hate you because it comes easier to them than joy, or laughter or liking pizza. I was lost in one of those prisons. Trapped in the routine of faux motherhood, left to raise my evil little shit of a brother for a semester. He is eight and already has mastered the fine art of sarcasm. His words pierce me with their sharpness, burn me with his acerbic nature.

I walk into his room in the morning at 7:30 sharp. The ritual begins. He lays exposed, his small stout body twisted in his Incredible Hulk bed sheets. His fists are clutched tightly at his side even as he sleeps, as if ready to beat away anything that would intrude on his dreaming. I say his name. He hears me the first time. I see his eyes moving under his lids, the smile fighting at the corner of his mouth to show it�s self. He likes this game. He will now pretended to be asleep. I say his name four times each time his name swells and fills the room. I pull on his foot, lightly, still saying his name. His eyes flash open at the first hint of touch. He looks at me and smiles, sickenly sweet, and says, �Your fat and ugly. I hate you get OUT!� I point out that his clothes have been laid out for him and await his dressing. I go and make breakfast.

There was a time when he would lose privileges. Our father would just give them back. Before he broke me I would spank him, each time terrified that I would hit to hard, be to rough, damage not his backside but his psyche. Each time memories of the beatings I endured as a child flooding my mind. My terror of being like my abusers made my attempts at corporal punishment ineffectual. After a spanking he would not be hurt, nor repentive, he would be mad. Each spanking would lead to another. He would throw things and scream. It was the screaming that broke me. Even though I knew that he was only doing it for show, I knew that his bottom wasn�t even red, it was the screaming that hurt me. The way he would do it was thus. He would wait a few minutes to make sure that the spanking was over and then he would open his mouth as wide as he would while still marinating eye contact. At first there would be no sound at all. Then it would hit, waves and waves of sound; his screams would wash over me. I would sit trying to ignore it. Thinking that if I did anything he would only be getting his way and receiving the attention that he wanted. But, he could do it for hours. Inside of me things were being closed off, corridors crumbling, doors slamming shut. In his scream how ever fake it was I heard echoes of my own. I remembered what it was like for me.

I never screamed as a child. I knew that it would only make it worse. I didn�t cry. I didn�t sass. I didn�t speak in front of my parental units, (mother and who ever she was currently fucking). I knew that not existing for them was the only thing that would allow my current existence to continue. I can remember wanting to fight back, to yell, spit, bite, defend myself in the onslaught of their wrath. Instead I learned to go limp. All of my screams are still inside of me. Now, it is to late to let them out.

Every morning he has a huge breakfast. I make biscuits, eggs, gravy, bacon or sausage and he has juice and water to drink. I don�t eat breakfast at all during the day. (I think it is only good around two or three in the morning after a night drinking with friends.) The smell of food in the morning makes me sick. The smoke off the bacon chokes me. The runny eggs, gags. This is what little Lord Flauntlroy wants, Father said to make it for him.

At 8:20 he goes to school. At 3:35 he returns.

My days became measured by tantrums, and the need to keep him happy. Anything, anything to stop the screaming.

One day I almost snapped. I found my mother in me. He was standing the bathroom, his fury bouncing off the walls. He was mad that I asked him to shower. How dare I ask his lordship to be clean before bed. He let me know that he was displeased, and made his raucous noise play out for his audience of one. Thirty or forty minutes into his fit, all thought left my head but one. Just one. One little thought and that was to make him stop. Anything to make him stop. I went into the bathroom, he was still fully clothed, the water running in the shower, as if to make me think that he was minding. Tears glistened on my reddened cheeks, fine lines broke around my face, white etching for a brown glass. I carefully covered his mouth with my hand, making sure not to accidentally cover his nose. I got down on my knees and looked him in his eyes, and told him that he had to stop. I couldn�t take it, I couldn�t listen; I couldn�t hear. He had to stop. I stayed like that on my knees, my hand over his mouth waiting for it to stop. Repeating myself, watching him hyperventilate, the whites of his eyes go wild. Finally he went silent. I left the room. He took his shower. I called my grandmother in Tennessee. I needed to know if I was a child abuser. Had I just hurt him in some way that I was also hurt?

For him the answer would matter. For me the answer was already known. If he hadn�t stopped what would I have done to make him? What beast of flesh and violence had been unleashed in me?

I�m moving out. I can�t live there anymore. I can�t explain to my father of the infamous bad temper that it is his son that is driving me away. If I hurt him, if I became a full fledge version of my mother I know that there would be no options left. When a dog goes mad you put him down� a bullet to the head and he will never bite anyone again.

I can�t make it better, I refuse to make it worse.

My brother, whom I wanted to love, to cuddle, to play with and adore, at eight still wets the bed, tortures animals and likes to play with fire.

-Adipose

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