TM Prompt #218: Lies
TM Prompt #218: Write about a lie your parents told you.
My mother told me only one lie. But it was a pretty frakking big one.
She said that physical pain was not real. She said that all the things she did to me were nothing compared to what emotional pain can feel like. She said that forcing me to endure pain would make me a stronger person, would make me able to tolerate almost anything. Well, maybe that last part is true. But the rest of it? Frakking lies.
Physical pain exists. You haven't lived until your fingers are being slammed in a godsdamned door. You haven't lived until you're being smacked, open palm, full across your face. You haven't lived until you try and cook, put on clothes, open a jar lid, and you can't because your hands are in casts and it hurts too much to bend your fingers anyway. You haven't lived until you've had to explain to people at school about the latest "accident" or "clumsy moment" you had. You haven't lived until you've stayed up all night trying to invent new accidents, thinking of the ones you've already used and which ones can't be reused.
I burned my hand.
It was so frakking stupid - I didn't see the door closing in time to get my hand out of the way!
I tripped.
I hit my head on my night table.
Frak, I must have used them all.
I never wanted to tell people what my mother did to me because I knew she'd make my life worse than in hells if I let the secret out. And the crazy frakking thing is, after awhile, I started to believe what she told me. I started to believe that physical pain was all in my mind and that if I felt it, it was a sign of weakness. I didn't want to acknowledge that I was fallible. So I didn't wince. I didn't grimace. I didn't cry. I just stared at her as she hit me, slammed me, punched me.
Hey, it was better than being smacked around more if I showed pain.
I didn't know then that years later, these lessons would serve me. I didn't know that on a desolate moon, they would enable me to crawl from my shattered Viper on a broken knee. Struggling and cursing all the way but still frakking doing it. Those lessons helped me find the Cylon Raider. They helped me figure out how to pilot it. They helped me when the Old Man firmly and unequivoably shot down my plans to fly the tylium refinery mission.
But even through all of that - even though those lessons saved my frakking life - I still cannot overlook one fact.
My mother lied to me.
She said physical pain does not exist.
That's a frakking lie. Pure and simple.
Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
Battlestar Galactica
470 words
((OOC note: For those of you who have friended this journal recently, I just wanted to reiterate that I'm doing these TM prompts unofficially. They are in no way intended to be an infringement upon the rights of Kara's current TM mun.))
My mother told me only one lie. But it was a pretty frakking big one.
She said that physical pain was not real. She said that all the things she did to me were nothing compared to what emotional pain can feel like. She said that forcing me to endure pain would make me a stronger person, would make me able to tolerate almost anything. Well, maybe that last part is true. But the rest of it? Frakking lies.
Physical pain exists. You haven't lived until your fingers are being slammed in a godsdamned door. You haven't lived until you're being smacked, open palm, full across your face. You haven't lived until you try and cook, put on clothes, open a jar lid, and you can't because your hands are in casts and it hurts too much to bend your fingers anyway. You haven't lived until you've had to explain to people at school about the latest "accident" or "clumsy moment" you had. You haven't lived until you've stayed up all night trying to invent new accidents, thinking of the ones you've already used and which ones can't be reused.
I burned my hand.
It was so frakking stupid - I didn't see the door closing in time to get my hand out of the way!
I tripped.
I hit my head on my night table.
Frak, I must have used them all.
I never wanted to tell people what my mother did to me because I knew she'd make my life worse than in hells if I let the secret out. And the crazy frakking thing is, after awhile, I started to believe what she told me. I started to believe that physical pain was all in my mind and that if I felt it, it was a sign of weakness. I didn't want to acknowledge that I was fallible. So I didn't wince. I didn't grimace. I didn't cry. I just stared at her as she hit me, slammed me, punched me.
Hey, it was better than being smacked around more if I showed pain.
I didn't know then that years later, these lessons would serve me. I didn't know that on a desolate moon, they would enable me to crawl from my shattered Viper on a broken knee. Struggling and cursing all the way but still frakking doing it. Those lessons helped me find the Cylon Raider. They helped me figure out how to pilot it. They helped me when the Old Man firmly and unequivoably shot down my plans to fly the tylium refinery mission.
But even through all of that - even though those lessons saved my frakking life - I still cannot overlook one fact.
My mother lied to me.
She said physical pain does not exist.
That's a frakking lie. Pure and simple.
Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
Battlestar Galactica
470 words
((OOC note: For those of you who have friended this journal recently, I just wanted to reiterate that I'm doing these TM prompts unofficially. They are in no way intended to be an infringement upon the rights of Kara's current TM mun.))