To stay alive meant to erase every bad thing that happened to me right after it happened. I would open the spot in the darkest part of my mind and place it on a shelf to deal with later. Eight years old and watching a cop stroke himself to a child sitting on the floor playing was one of those things that had to be placed on the shelf because it was too big for me to digest and too old for me to know what it meant. Every child’s safe spot was their mother, but mine had to find herself before she could find me, and I was lost in a vast sea of loneliness and gulped alive in regret that I even existed. Who loved me? I learned fast that the answer was no one. I knew I could only count on myself because all I had was myself. Some nights staring up at the crack on my ceiling I prayed to die so that I could be with my dad, as I was convinced, he was the only person to ever have loved me, and I had buried his memories as well on the shelf in the back of my mind, and no one ever let me forget that I didn’t remember him, therefore he wasn’t my dad. I looked for him in every new guy my mom brought home hoping that someone would love me. When that never came, I learned that love didn’t exist, and that life was about survival and mine was erasing things until I was strong enough to deal with them myself. I am not an author, but a storyteller of my life. You may find mistakes throughout the book, but I needed my story told so that my family and I could finally heal and that with a little luck someone out there somewhere could read what I went through and find some hope in their life that they aren't lonely in this great big world. You have someone who knows your pain and loneliness. I have changed all names, but my own and places. I have dramatized the story of my life to save the very people who harmed me. Not for them, but for me, you see even now these people will want to still hurt me for telling my own story.