IF HE HAD JUST…

On a lonely moonless night, within the four walls of her prison that seem to be closing in on her a little bit every day sat the once glowing starlight. It was sad to see this once happy and brilliant bloom washed out of all hope and color. For a long time, she fought with the same possible scenarios day and night. If he had just been a bit kinder…If he had just gone away at the beginning… If he had a conscience… If he could have seen me as a living breathing human being… If he had just not viewed me as a possession… If  he could have just loved me… If he had just… the possibilities were endless. She was not forced by anyone into her prison, not directly at least. It was all executed in a very subtle manner. The threats were spoken as just pieces of information and incomplete sentences. There was a time when the pain was much more real, felt in body, mind, soul, and spirit, and managed to crack them too. The pain of a broken heartfelt at an age when personality and perceptions are formed.

She waged a battle every day, she fought hard, tooth and nail just to stay afloat. Dark and dreary were her dreams like storm clouds in the sky, roaring, and thundering, but hope, that ray of hope always lingered like the sun waiting to shine through and break free. Some days the battle was won, and other days she lost, but she never did consider to lay down her weapons and surrender. The fleeting thoughts and temptations did come. That cold voice at the back of her mind saying “Give up, stop fighting and just rest. Give in and lay down, conform. It has been more than a decade since you had any victory to show the outside world.” Sometimes it seems so easy and she wanted to but she just could not.

The sun did shine through one day. Not like the brilliant floodlight but a small ray, a ray that was so delicate and fragile, so beautiful and pure. It was small, but it was there nonetheless. She woke up one day and instead of thinking if he had just… she thought, thank God he did. Thank God he did what he did and showed his true nature. Thank you, God. Thank you for that experience and most of all Thank God for my past and the strength to fight for a better day.

Then came the day when she sat within those four walls that were her self-imposed prison and all the darkness, the filth, the wretchedness, ugliness, and pain of the past she laid out on paper and said “You are mine. You are my past. And I am glad for you, for without you I could never be who I am today. I accept you for all that you are, you will always stay with me, but it is time for you to just be a memory, not a painful one, not a bleeding hurt, just a memory in a box. A box I will open and look into to know my strength, my warrior spirit, and to find courage.” And so she left it all behind and walked down the path that lay illuminated within her mind, the path that was shadowed by the beautiful tall trees with the dancing rays of sunlight casting mesmerizing shapes and shadows on the soft moss-covered path deep into the woods of life. Never to turn back, never to regret, and never to forget the lessons the past had taught her, the lessons that man had taught her. She stepped onto the path that lay before her, with the fates as her loving companion. She finally laid that last scenario to rest. If he had just not been her father.

©Alessandra Arora