inheritance

From my father I inherited the inability to be in my own body and mind. My body does not exist and I do not want to exist as this. I beat myself to feel aches in my body and to remind myself that I have one. The blood I spill is the colour of most of my childhood. They say blood is the colour of passion. My father had a passion for his blood and my own. He shed my blood as if it was his own. I choke myself in the kitchen just to feel some sensation of my life leaving my body, as if I knew what life is. Even now as I sound all of my thoughts through these words, my hands are not my own. I feel as if they’re moving like a marionette across my keyboard. The keyboard on my lap feels so far away from this body. I feel like my head is floating. Like I’m on the guillotine.

My father undressed me and inserted his body and fingers into me. Some people have no body and possess a mind, but in these years I feel as if I have neither. No body, no mind. I know when I look down at the floor, I can see my feet and legs. But they don’t belong to me, they don’t belong to anyone.

Now I feel further away. I feel it is harder to form coherent sentences. When my father didn’t use me, some other man did. Maybe that’s why I had so many male friends in school. I was used to being around groups of men. And I repress myself like a man. I keep myself silent, like a man.

What did he do to me in the forest? What did he do to my body when he took me there? Who else touched me not as a child, but as a woman when in fact I was a c h i l d. From my father I inherited an ability to not believe in anyone. Their words - lies. Their actions, always suspicious.

From my my father, I inherited a feeling of disgust towards myself.

We didn’t have a bath, we didn’t have a shower. We had an outdoor toilet. I could never clean myself. I could never clean the abuse away from myself. I had to exist with it on my skin. His fingerprints and impressions that they left were with me for days. As a 30 year old, I am a bath lover - it is a haven for me. As a little girl, it was a space for me to exist with myself.

I feel better when I have a fever - when it feels like I am unsticking myself from my own body. When everything feels as if it was a figment of my own imagination, falling.

Keistas jausmas apima mane, nes ši vieta nėra įsivaizduojami namai – tai fizinė realybė. Sienos tvirtos, yra metalo ir akmens. Aš girdėjau, kad akmens skulptūros yra amžina žmogaus forma.

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Strange feeling washes over me because this place is not an imagined home - it is a physical reality. The walls are solid, there is metal and stone. I heard that stone sculptures are the human form made eternal.