I Loved Book Reports, the Halcyon Days of Youth

 I remember the halcyon days of fourth grade and book reports. Information required, the Book Report Format was an Aspergian Dream. 

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This was grand, succinct, to the point, all-inclusive, no questions or explanations required.

I handed in Book Reports every week, oft more than two or three a week because books were one of the accepted public forms of escape from cruelty, neglect, starvation, parentally inflicted, family-accepted pain.

It would be nice to say that as a child I was loved, but that was not the case. I was not loved, nor was I cared for. Of those two I am crystal clear. Umm, I was wanted because my parents needed someone, some thing to push upon all of their decades of pain and torment. Yes, that is the magic sentence. Okay.

I was not seen or acknowledged. I was, basically, used. A receptacle, an object, the oldest daughter, second oldest with all the perverse job activities required thereof.

I was a thing, an object, a babysitter, a place where dad could..., my mothers relief pitcher and stand-in. I didn't have feelings to be asked about, considered or heard. Inanimate. Hmm, yes, I was not allowed to have any thoughts or feelings or emotions regarding the crimes done to me. I said little. I was little, enslaved. Showed no emotion and managed to somehow live through it enough to escape the family house of carnage and ill repute at 18 and runoff with an older male counterpart.

Life doesn't make sense like book reports.

There is no standard form; there are hundreds and thousands. Each person, each situation is different and unique. I have but one pen. I know but one form. Most of my time is spent lost, if I am honest.

But I do exist. So, when able, I will write.

I don't have to have a point, an angle, a cute and corrupt way of writing that entertains...I just have Aspie me.

I write to know I am

because I am and I matter

to me