000. there will be flowers scattered through the floor of your house, red and yellow and white and pink, and your mother will order you to tread with care as you walk to your room. she’ll put together with sculpture-like precision bouquets for other girls and serve them coffee with her ever tired smile. later that day, the hole in your window will be gone and the leaking in the bathroom too. your mother will come home at three in the morning, and finish sewing the red scarf you begged her to.

001. one day, when the snow starts to fill the ground up and the cold winds start to blow, a tall man with stern features and a stink of corruption that eats through his bones will come through your door. if you’re lucky ( and you never are ), your mother will hold your body against hers and guard you jealously and lovingly. if you’re not, he will extend a golden, golden hand, and say : ❛  MINE. YOU’RE MINE.   ❜

002. you’ll move to a house tenth-twice the size of your own, tenth-thrice as cold and the warmth of your mother will be filled with the wintriness of your father              the tenderness of your mother will be replaced by the hands of your father around your wrist, throat, arms. you won’t be enough  :   you will never be enough. 

003. you will learn, by the time you are fifteen, how to survive under his circumstances. you will discipline yourself to be harder, sharper, smarter, better than anyone, better than your brother could ever be. you will train your words and your tongue and turn yourself into the daughter he’s ever wished for, into the perfection which he demands, and do so all of it for, and solely for, him to extend his golden, golden hand, and say :  ❛  CLEVER GIRL.   ❜ 

004. one day, you’ll find yourself clinging into someone else’s warmth and thinking it is your own  :  you’ll hold your body against theirs and share bits and pieces with them, enough but not too much, and most of that you’ve longed for will be there, will be with you               ❛  SWEAR THAT YOU WILL NOT LEAVE ME.   ❜ .  you’ll learn, finally, that nothing ever stays, not with you. you’ll ruin everything before it can ruin you. 

005. your body will grow cold like stripped fields. you’ll shed your warmth and softness like a snake sheds its skin. you’ll wrung out of you all that does not serve, until you are better, harder, sharper, smarter, colder. 

006. one day, when the snow starts to fill the ground up and the cold wind starts to blow, a tall woman will stern features and a stink of brutality that eats through her bones will look at your reflection in the mirror. if you are lucky ( and you never are ), she’ll blink and think nothing of it. if you’re not, she will extend a pale, pale hand and say  : ❛  YOU’RE STILL HUMAN.  ❜ 

007.  you’ll cry out to the skies and pray to the gods you have never believed in to not let that man ever come through your door. he will always come.