Mario was penning an op-ed for the New York Times. His fiancee sat close to him near the coffee table of their new home. “It’s safe for you to expose what your mother did. She can’t hurt you now. She’s dead.” They hugged and Darren went upstairs to complete some things around the house. “It’s safe,” Mario thought.
After his post about women’s rights had gone viral, the New York Times contacted Mario to pen an op-ed about the truth of his childhood, a truth he had never revealed to anyone other than his fiancee. He started typing then shut his computer. He yelled up the stairs, I’m going on the balcony to have a smoke. Okay babe, Darren replied.
Mario took in the view of NYC. He saw the words in his mind.
It was the way in which she never asked how I was and thought that was enough. It was the way she came home from a night out on the town and never greeted me, instead going to shower then bed. I wasn’t what she wanted, because I wasn’t like her. And she chose them over me. Every time. When I was 7 I would fall asleep at night listening to music. No matter how loud the music was, vibrations of the two of them made its way up the walls into my bedroom, through my bedposts, and into my bed. I heard muffled noises, so I didn’t hear them, but instead I felt them, and that was enough to scar me as a kid, because the next day I would get up for school and get beat up by my mom - physically, verbally, you name it - for doing nothing at all. For dropping a pencil. For not remembering to grab my lunch off the kitchen counter because my nervous system couldn’t handle memory and fear at the same time. She didn’t sleep, and her mental health was declining as a result, but in the mornings especially, I saw her as a six-headed monster. Whose only purpose was to make my life a living hell. When she was around I would tremble, afraid of who I was going to get each time. Would it be my real mother, or the monster? After I moved out it took me a long time to approach mornings in a healthy way. I asked my partner to give me time in the morning before he approached me, so that I wouldn’t rip his head off. The mornings brought a chill over me that I couldn’t shake for years.
The man that received the deepest, soul-like parts of my mother was the same man that was driving her straight into the ground. He was fucking the life out of her, and I was the only one that cared. Sometimes I wondered if she cared about anything at all or if she hated herself like the rest of us.
Thank you for bearing witness to all of my insides. Here’s what I’m currently reading, drinking, and loving.
Jennifer Diane is a witch scholar, writer and model based out of New Jersey. She’s authored Folk Horror, Rural Horror, Devil’s Manifesto, Emotional Horrorshow, and Salvation. Book a one on one session, shop her books and zines, or find her on Instagram.
Please note, I pen free and paid content for this publication, Darkness Thriving, as well as monthly fictional stories for the Dark Lord Show Me the Way section. You can control what you receive via email by going here.