No Remorse

I don't talk about this often and I never talk about it with anyone in person because voicing it would make me admit out loud that this was actually my life.  It is no longer my life and I want to put it behind me.  However, there are times when things happen that remind me of times I am glad have passed.
This story is personal.  I will not be graphic but I expect it will not be easy to read.  So I give you fair warning.  Please forgive any typos as I will not be reading it over for editing purposes as I do with all my other posts.

It wasn't the first time in my life that I thought things would be so much better if I was just dead.  It was the first time that I wished my life would be taken by someone other than myself.  I was eleven and had just started fifth grade.  I don't recall where the other family members were at the time as that's not something at the forefront of a child's mind when they are being beaten.  Mother was in another rage.  I never knew when they would happen or what would trigger them.  This time it was over laundry.  I wasn't folding fast enough.  Daydreaming was my crime.
I recall feeling pain as some of my hair came away from my scalp.  I recall watching the floor come closer to me as I was thrown several feet away from her.  It felt like it was in slow motion.  I recall doing what I call signing out or tuning out.  I never did what some survivors of abuse say they have done where they have out of body experiences.  I just tuned out to what was happening to me.  I would either close my eyes or I would focus inward.  This gave me the ability to rely on thoughts of floating in space or walking down long tunnels filled with bright colourful lights.  Things that were so far from reality that it was impossible for me to continue to be in reality.  And I would stay in those thoughts until I knew it was over.
This time my thoughts betrayed me.  They didn't take me to somewhere other than where I was.  I still felt the abuse.  I still felt the pain.  And this time, I wished that one of the blows to my head would kill me.  I kept my eyes closed tightly and imagined that I would go unconscious.  That I would continue to be beaten until she realized that I was not moving at all anymore.  And then I imagined that she would finally feel sorry for what she had done.  That she would finally feel remorse.  That she would finally pick me up and hold me.  That she would finally rock me.  That her arms and hands would no longer be weapons.
But that never happened, of course.  When it was all over, I walked back to the couch, picked up a shirt and began to fold the laundry again.

She never did feel remorse and I don't believe that she ever will.