Reasons To Live by Sara Khalil (learn to read activity book .TXT) 📖

feel? Or is it something we tell ourselves we have and should feel? Do we just make it up in our heads to give ourselves a reason to live? If we do, then why is the line of love so thin and breakable? Why is it so painful? That's what I've been thinking about all night. Does anyone have an answer? Huh, I didn't think so.


I don't call him. I don't want anything to do with men. I just sit in my room, door locked with Eminem blasting through my head phones. I see the blinking light on the answering machine telling me some one left a message, but I didn't hear it. As I nod my head to Eminem rapping about his dad, I can't help but wish my dad had left us. We would have been better off without him. I sometimes think that everything would be better if he didn't change.
If he would just shut up once in awhile and let me speak. All my anger stays pent up, followed by a short fuse that lights at the slightest thing. I don't want to be like him. I don't want to put the people I love through pain. I don't want it to happen to me. Just listen to me dad, just listen for once to what I want to say. I start to scream and I pull my hair out, and for what? For all it matters to you, I was just a seven year old having a tantrum.
So finally I learned to suck it up. Suck it up and keep on walking. Life was gonna go on, no matter how much I wanted it to end everytime I had a melt down. Everytime the world felt like it was gonna collapse and finally take me with it. Everytime I cried and wanted you to hug me, say it was all going to be okay. Everytime all I wanted to hear were three simple words, so I knew that you cared enough for me to stay alive. I loved you dad, why did you have to go and change that?


It's kind of funny, how you happened to buy me a new present after everytime you did something wrong. You break my new Barbie, here's a new one. Yell at me for breaking my new new Barbie, here's a toy dog. Throw my toy dog at me and break it on my forehead,
"Oh I'm sorry honey, here's a real doggy. It can be your new best friend."
But it didn't matter how many toys or animals you bought me, and you know that. That's why every time I broke your presents out of anger and hatred, you bought a newer and better one then the last one.
Each one always ended up broken. I even tried to kill the dog. But I chickened out. She was so alone and when I held her in my arms, she shook. She felt as if all she needed was a hug to calm her down. She felt like me; abused and abandoned. Left to die, not really wanted around. So I kept her, the only toy my dad got me that actually survived.
And I made sure Baby knew that. I make sure she knows how much I love her. She knows that she's my baby. I'm the only one that loves her. She knows that.


I stay in my room the next three days, not even coming out when my mom told me the food was ready. I stayed in my bed, huddled up in the corner with Eminem still blasting through my headphones. Now he was rapping about not giving up, till he collapses. And I start to think to myself, 'Why can't I be as strong as him? He's been through more bullshit than me . . . why am I weaker than him?' And I make myself a promise. I won't be weak. I won't break down and I won't let him run my life. I won't let fear and anger run my life. Just then, the song I hate most by Eminem comes on.
When I'm Gone, and I start to cry. I hate it because it makes me cry. It feels like he's rapping about my life. All the promises my dad made, breaking every one of them. All the times he left for days and months at a time, then just comes back and acts like everything is gonna be just fine. The second verse comes on, and about halfway through I stop it at Sweden. I can't take anymore. I snatch the phone that sits on my side table and I dial the only number I can think of. It rings.
"Hello?" A girl's voice says into the other line. But I can't say anything, all I can do is cry loud enough for her to hear. "Sissy, is that you? What's wrong?" Mimi asks into the speaker.
"Get me out of here." I say through gritted teeth, trying to stop crying.
"Aw baby girl, I'll be there as fast as I can. You can tell me everything later." She hangs up the phone, no doubt she's yelling for Grandma May to get the keys,
"Something's wrong with Sissy," she'd say. And I'd stay in my bed, counting the seconds that go by until she comes. And I know why I stay alive again. I live and die for her. She's my very own sissy.

Chapter Four: Black Tainted Tears

I want to disappear.

I want to float away in a cloud of bliss .. to God. As I think these strangely alarming thoughts, the room seems hotter. I can't breathe well and my chest is tight. The room closes in and I feel like I'm going to collapse. All of a sudden, Mimi pops into the room just as I start to cry. She doesn't say anything as she runs over and puts her arms around me. She just holds me tightly, comfortingly.

After three days and two nights of hiding out in Grandma May's house, I finally go home. Grandma May doesn't like the idea, she's worried. But I reassure her that I will be absolutely fine, I Promise. Something like this won't happen again. Something like this meaning I won't have a major melt down and call Mimi crying again, wanting her to come pick me up. But I know it probably will happen again. Of course, I can't tell Grandma May that. So I just plaster a smile on my face, and talk in a perky voice. I look at Mimi and see the look on her face, pain.
She knows I'm faking and every perky word I force through my slightly clenched teeth hurts her just as much as it hurts me. But I act as if I never noticed the look, I avoid Mimi's understanding eyes and continue smiling and nodding my head to whatever Grandma May's talking about, not really following the story. 'Smile, nod, don't forget to smile!', I think to myself, these words running through my head throughout the whole drive home. 'Do not cry!', are the the final words that run through my mind before I completely go numb and shut off. Numb is good, very good.


As I sit in my room, staring at my bare legs in my boxer shorts. This feeling of needing something slams me so strong on the inside of me, I can't even begin to explain it. It's like my heart is aching to beat out of my rib cage and break through the flesh of my chest. But it's also fighting to stay inside of me. I want to cry, but I can't. My heart is stopping me. I force myself to cry, a couple of tears fogging my vision.
My heart aches more but I feel no pleasure, no feel of release in this forced act. I can feel the pain and I can't explain it. So I do what I promised myself and my sister that I would never dare to do again. And I start, line by line they appear.
Sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, letting the feeling sink in deep. By the time I'm done, I look at my legs. They're no longer bare, they're been violated. I just stare, taking in every smudge, every drop, every sting. I take in feeling, emotion. I cry and cry, but for what? I'm not sure, but I want to know.
I think and think and it finally hits me. Hits me hard. I'm crying because what I'm looking at is what's happening to me internally. I'm bleeding inside, that's why actually seeing the blood makes me cry. And as I realize this, I can feel the tickle and I know all this blood pumps from my heart. My heart is bleeding, tearing, and draining out right in front of me. My thighs are red and bloody, and I still can't stop crying. My whole body is shaking, and I don't know how to stop. I can't stop, because no matter how many times I wipe the blood clean with a paper towel ( a toy or simple words of love ) it just keeps on bleeding, and I can't stop it. I have no control over it. No control over my life, or me. No control whatsoever.


After my melt down, I go into the kitchen to get me something to drink, knowing my dad's at work so it'll most likely just be me and my Mom. I open the fridge, and pull out some orange juice. My Mom stands at the counter next to the sink, chopping up potatoes for dinner. I'm about to walk out of the kitchen with my juice, but my Mom's voice stops me.
"You have an appointment at Riverside at 5:30pm. So you have about an hour or so until we leave. Go change and tell me when your ready to leave." She says this cautiously, like she thinks I'm going to blow up on her for mentioning therapy.
" 'Kay." I say, trying to walk away.
"If you ask me, I don't think therapy is working. Your acting the same. Disrespectful and always talking back. What do you need therapy for anyways? Me and your Dad have given you everything you've ever wanted, and you treat us this way. Why? Can you tell me? What did we do to you?"

I want to scream.
"Mama, it's not you! It's him . . . you know I don't like him! Stop clumping yourself in with him Mama! I love you okay? How many times do I have to tell you?"
"If you say this to me about him, then what do you say to him about me?"
"Oh my God, Mom! Stop it! I love you okay?" I scream at her.
She cries. I feel like shit.


When I walk into the Riverside clinic, I see Pat sitting in a chair looking at a People magazine waiting for me. She looks up and smiles at me, her light blond hair shining with slightly gray hairs.