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Ten months and twenty two days.
That's how long I have until the cigarette smoke in my lungs is gone.
Ten months and twenty two days.
I won't ever have to smell the tobacco or taste the second hand nicotine in the air. The smog will fade from my senses forever, only to appear as a ghost when someone on the street holds a cigarette up to their lips. They don't understand that the smoke is killing me just as much as it's killing them.
Ten months and twenty two days.
This room will be a shell that day. Void of my presence, I will never step foot in it again. Too many nights where I let my soul leak from my eyes haunt me in my dreams. Too many times where she cracked open my ribs to poke at my barely beating heart. Too many nights where she continued to spit at me even tho I was already drenched in her disgusting saliva. I can't see them again, and every time I look at this room, my mind leaves my body to relive those times. I can never come back on my own.
Ten months and twenty two days.
My brother will come see me again. He'll meet up with me at with whichever of my friends save my life and take me into their home. He'll hug me, the only family member that ever meant it when he said that he loved me. I'll cry, because he understands. He knows what it's like for her to hold you between her razor sharp teeth.
Ten months and twenty two days.
I'll miss my sister, but I cannot save her. She follows her around like her life depends on it. She is numb, she is brainwashed, but every once in a while I can see it in her eyes; the fight, the anger, the pain. I see it flash for a second before she pulls herself back and says what she is trained to. "Yes, mother."
Ten months and twenty two days.
She will try to convince me to stay. She will tell me that I'm selfish. She will spew venom at me. She will blame me for the all of my sleepless nights where I stared at the sunrise, wishing that starting a new day was as easy as leaping over the horizon. She will break me down and try to force me back into my hole. She will snap my neck, but I will not die. I will grow my broken bones back into place, because freedom will only be a few steps away.
Ten months and twenty two days.
I will cry on the car ride out. Whichever one of my dear friends are holding me as the car pulls away will congratulate me on my freedom. I will sob into their shoulder and tell them, "Thank you, thank you, thank you-" and I won't stop until I die.
Ten months and twenty two days.
I will think about going back. I will tell myself that I am making a mistake, that I couldn't possibly make it without her. I'll writhe on the floor of my new bedroom, whether that be a real bedroom or not does not matter, for I will be grateful for even a simple couch to stay on. I will hold a blade to my neck, force myself to step towards the door that will lead me back home, but that isn't home, and it isn't me holding the blade to my neck. It is a silhouette. A shadow. It is a culmination of everything she's said to me, poking, prodding, prying, trying to force me back there because she convinced me that I cannot survive without her. That I need her. But I don't, and I place the blade down. I go back to bed, and no one in the house is disturbed.
Ten months and twenty two days.
It is almost midnight, and I lie awake creating a new countdown. "Seven months," I'll whisper into the dark, fall night. "Seven months until the robe flows behind me, until caps fly, and I am handed a piece of paper that will hold my future."
Ten months and twenty two days.
Ten months and twenty two days.
Ten months and twenty two days.
Ten months and twenty three days, I take the first step on the staircase to true freedom.