Another Number.

Arguing, it does my head in. I’m not saying I don’t argue, definitely not saying I’m a scrawny lettuce leaf who can’t fight her own battles. It’s just arguing. I’ve had it, heard it, for as long as I can remember. Night and day, it’s almost like a routine now. Tension so thick, a shark could chew menacingly on it; bad feelings a whir of forgotten memories.
I’ve never properly known love. The arguments destroyed that. I often question if I’ll ever find it; ever have it. I think people find it hard to understand what you’ve been through, what you go through. Every time I try to speak up, the conversation is quickly turned and I am left stranded, standing alone to delve back into myself once more. Constant and violent, I fear it will never end.
I fear how, every time you hear that argument, those raised voices, perils and snide remarks; you fear that everything is over again. You fear that you have to try and somehow start again, without picking up the pieces, never being allowed to know where it all went wrong.
That’s why I feel the way I feel. It’s why I play my cards well and never show anyone my full hand – because the cards I possess are not as great as people assume. It’s why no-one knows, because every day I wake up and face the fact that, all in all, I’m just another number in the system. There’s too many numbers, too many of us.
Us equals we. We need help.
Help us; help me.

But I guess that help will never arrive. Now I know how Robinson Crusoe felt when he got stranded on his island. How finding the single footprint brought him hope and anxiety. How isolation tore away at his heart every day, the greatest fear being what the next day was to bestow. Alas, I am no Robinson Crusoe, with no footprint in the sand.
My island is empty and I haven’t a gun.
My name is Ava Margaret Penn, and this is my story.