War of Prey

15)Future Lover

"I know you, not from where or how, but I know you."

***

I am who I am, and no one will change that

I don't remember my heart being a welcome mat

Who are you to judge me? Who are you to care?

I do notice but care not when you stare

I shan't apologize for I am, I will not change for you

Not everyone wants to be you, too

Not everyone deserves to have my attention

Some don't deserve my affection

It is those who try to hold me down that do not deserve it

In a world so big, where do I fit?

I shall find my own place; I don't need you to help

If your help is detrimental, I can find my own self-help

I am beautiful the way I am

Oh, you don't like it? Well, darling, I don't give a damn.

***

To my future lover,

I am only ten years old writing, but I know enough to write this truthfully. I have made many mistakes when I was alive; though I am ten, I have made the mistakes of someone twice my age. I have done and said things I should not have and created things I should not have, but it is not my fault. That is how I was raised. As I have learned, a ten-year-old should not drink, nor should they wield knives and swords, but they were left for me. How else do you expect a ten-year-old to defend her family? I was raised on fighting, on knowing how to disarm an intruder, how to effectively sever the spinal cord, and how to fight a man thrice your size. Fighting is not limited to physical; there is always the mental and emotional battle, one that I have fought since six, and one that I shall fight for the remainder of my life. I want my life to be totally transparent when I find you; I do not wish there to be secrets between us; I want you to know upfront what you are agreeing to handle. I wish not to force you to love me with all of my flaws, I want our love to be consensual, for you to love me and not the shell everyone else sees. I want to tell you everything about me and how I have wronged the world.

At age three, I was given my first knife, my Ruby Dagger. I trained with that Dagger for three hours every day, a lot for a three-year-old, but I wanted it. I was four when the first intruder I had encountered tried to break in and take my home, not that it was much of a home for me. I was four when I took my first life. He reeked of marijuana and vodka; yes, I knew what both smelled like from the age of two. It was part of my training. I was trained to sniff out and differentiate drugs when I was two, and I perfected it by four, I was able to tell if someone was on drugs, high, or in withdrawal.

At age four, I had my first drink, red wine, so I could know what alcohol tasted like; then I got my taste for alcohol. I do not drink much; a cup here and there, so I remember the taste. I watched people shoot up and smoke marijuana, I watched people overdose in front of me, watched people get shot, stabbed, heard in explicit details of someone being raped. I watched live arrests, watched people commit suicide, and was there when they told the family of the deceased.

Six was the year that death crept up on me; I found myself wishing to be taken by it. Since then, I have always had thoughts of my death; not yet have I acted on it, but do not mistake that for an easy decision. I trained hardest that year, slept with my Dagger in my hands, and often woke up with cuts and lacerations. I was able to lift double my weight and ate as much as a sixteen-year-old.