Hitting the bottom stair

.
Like most people I just want to know that my life has/had a purpose. That there is/was a reason for it all.

Waking up each morning to a brand new day was a reason to live. My life had purpose. I was there for Herman.

No matter the shame of not having a job, of being an unwanted guest in his ex's house. No matter the need to wait until his ex had left for school before I came down to see Herman and have breakfast with him. No matter the smiling face that I had to arrange on my face before I hit the bottom stair, the fear of being screamed at if my smile wasn't real enough, if my tread wasn't light enough, if I didn't make him laugh, brighten his day.

It was no matter because that was my life, that was my reason for being.

To make him forget the daily rapes by his ex, to weaken the attacks made by his father, to listen to his raging against his mother and try and comfort him. To act like nothing was wrong but to know that everything was wrong, to be the fault of everything and the cause of all pain.

But it made me real. Without it I was nothing. Without the pain and the screaming and the beatings and the hate I had lost everything that was mine to lose. I had ceased to exist.

Maybe that was what they wanted? Herman, the ex, the mother, the father, was I the scapegoat for them all? If I had not been there would they have destroyed each other? but they did destroy each other, would they have done it sooner, would they have destroyed each other sooner and left me whole?

And would I now know who I am?
.