Error code 417: Expectation Failed

By Yilin S., 14

His white car again.

It’s in the corner of my eye.

I duck down.

What if I’m right?

It’s been so long that I’ve had to measure 

fear by footsteps,

That now I can read them

Whose they are,

What he’s feeling

Because that determines

If my blood will be on the carpet

In the next hour

When I was three, I used to have a small white rug

But one day it disappeared

Mom said she couldn’t get the blood out of my rug

So she tossed it

My earliest memory is 

a hand assaulting my face 

when I was in the pram

And his angry red face, glaring

From age ten to now

I choose my old sneakers

When I go out, not my platforms

With a fruit knife in my pocket.

Once I wanted to wear my platforms out

I tripped and thought

I can’t run in these

So they lie abandoned in my closet

At school, in classrooms,

The doors start to lean in on me.

But no one sees it.

I sit where I can see everything,

Before everything can see me.

I see his car again–a white Toyota

There are too many to count.

The car will be there tomorrow,

It’s double parked in the back of my mind.

Belief only wounds the heart

Expectations betray me.

I can predict the future.

Or is it just overthinking?

Certainty feels dangerous.

Paranoia’s not a feeling.

It’s speaking to me

In shapes,

Colors,

Core memories,

The rhythm of my life.

After five years,

Fear’s still living rent-free in my head,

But the landlord won’t kick it out.

It is what stands between me and death

A white Toyota waits at the corner again.

I don’t even look.

But still, 

I feel him

Entering the room,

Pressing against my broken back,

We’re playing “Red light, Green light”

Again