The first time I considered death as an escape was at the young age of five years old…

During this time, my mother had recently divorced my biological father when I was three years old, and shortly got remarried to one of the most physically abusive people I have ever met. This period of my life was roughly between the ages of five to seven years old. This man is no doubt responsible for my timid nature as a child and every single time I recall these memories there is a wave of pity for the child version of myself. By the time my mother finally realized the damage he had caused, it was too late for poor Melon; he had already begun to wish for the sweet release of death. I feel that as a result of my early childhood, this sentiment has prevailed and caused me to develop stronger emotions such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. For the purposes of this chapter this man will be deemed "Charlie," as to distance myself from the heavy trauma and emotional baggage that may come up by retelling this part of my life.

As an adult, I think the hardest parts of this time in my life were the constant feeling of fear while being alone with Charlie. Charlie was actually a fairly short man, most likely between 5'6 or 5'7 tall. He was fairly chubby, quiet, and worked as a logger in my small town; by all means a "normal" American guy from the mountains of North Carolina, USA. The first memory I have of this man was when Charlie, my mother, and my grandfather were riding in the car. I remember it clearly…I was sitting in his lap in the back seat, and he began by covering my mouth with one hand, and then whispering into my ear: "If you scream I'll throw you out of the car." He then proceeded to place my right arm out the window, and started to roll the window pane up (back in the day cars had a lever to manually raise the window, different to automatic ones used in cars now). He had crushed my arm up to my elbow outside the car, while holding my mouth so as to not scream and alert my family in the front seat. After I could no longer withstand the pain, he pretended to pull my arm away from the window and said "Melon put his hand out the window and hurt his arm!" What happened next I do not remember, but it would only be the beginning of the torture I endured while living with this man.

To make matters worse during this time, my mother also was fairly young, I'd say approximately twenty-five years old. Due to having me so young, I assume she never had the chance to have her "rebellious phase." She would often leave for days, or even weeks at a time and left me under the watchful eye of Charlie. Keep in mind in the beginning, I was not yet at school age, so I could not go to school to escape the constant abuse. Every time my mother would leave and be gone more than a day, he would tell me that she had died in a tragic car accident, or abandoned me, or told me he had even killed her and I was to be his slave forever. As a child of course, you have no logical understanding to determine these blatant lies, so I was forced to experience the death of my mother multiple times, and felt abandoned more times than I'd like to admit. In addition to this, whenever my mother left, Charlie would refuse to feed me and I often starved for multiple days on end. Towards the end of their relationship, I had figured out that I could steal food from the lower cabinets during the middle of the night while he was asleep in the other room. I often hid sweets, crackers, and even pieces of food picked from the bottom of the trash in my toy box or under my bed. On one day in particular, I had not been fed in a few days and Charlie began to realize that small bits of food were missing from the pantry or trash can. As a result, he stated "Alright, if you want to eat so badly I'll make you something to eat." He had prepared an entire box of macaroni and cheese, and placed me in the living room in front of him. He said "You either finish every bite of this food, or I'll go kill your mother." As any child would…I tried to eat it all. Even though I had not eaten a full meal in days, I could not finish a box of food that size; after being so malnourished, I threw up the meal halfway. Charlie then stopped for a moment and told me to get a broom and clean the floor. He asked me to sweep the entire living room floor, leaving my mess for last. As I swept the mess into the dust pan, Charlie told me to continue to eat it. Charlie came over and forced my face into the dusty, thrown up mac n' cheese and made me my thrown up mess.

Another memory I have of my time living with Charlie was the time I tried to set the house on fire and run away. Charlie had once again told me my mother abandoned me and left me alone for the day. While he was gone I collected a small bag full of my belongings such as a small doll, a few pieces of food, things a toddler would think could sustain them out in the world. As I was leaving through the back door, I had a thought that I could start a fire while Charlie was still inside the house. So, I hid my small bag of belongings in the field behind the farmhouse, and waited until he got home. When Charlie asked me to bring firewood inside to start a fire for the night, I had taken his lighter and decided to set the flowerbed on the side of the house ablaze. My original thought during this time was that if I started the fire outside, the flowers and the field would also catch fire, and the smoke alarms inside would be the last thing to alert Charlie that the property was up in flames. However, as a young child I did not have enough arm strength to click the side of his handheld lighter (which Charlie often used to light his cigarettes). So I was ultimately caught trying to set a fire. The following punishment was by far the worst physical pain I had felt as a child. As punishment, Charlie had driven me to his workplace (which was a tree-logging construction lot) in the middle of the night. He told me to place my arms forward and lay them on top of a log on the ground. He then got a large piece of an uncut tree and continued to bash my arms with the log, until finally placing an even heavier log to squish my arms in place. He then took off his belt and began to whip me with his heavy leather belt. What happened after that I also cannot remember, but I'm sure it has long been blocked in the depths of my mind.

The final memory I would like to discuss happened near my birthday (I don't remember which one). My birthday takes place in December, and being so high up in the backwoods of the Appalachian Mountains, it snowed heavily that year. There wasn't any power for a few days and small trails and local roads had not been cleared towards the beginning of the week. One freezing night, my mother and Charlie were sleeping next to the wood fire. However Charlie had asked me to sleep in the other room where there wasn't any heat. I had asked my mother if I could sleep in her arms for warmth and because I was a small child at the time. After my mother had fallen asleep, Charlie had asked me to come sit by the fireplace and talk. He did not like that I had disobeyed him and asked to sleep under the blankets with them. So he picked up a fire-poker (a metal rod used to move wood around a fire-place), and began to beat me with it in the other room while my mother was asleep. Thankfully, he did not heat the metal rod in the fireplace or else I would have gotten serious burns. After a few days the snow had begun to melt and the water pipes thawed out. My mother left to get supplies and check up on the neighbors after the harsh cold and left me with Charlie. Charlie asked me to help check the hot water in the bathroom in order to clean ourselves after the past few days. I cannot say for certainty what really happened…But all I can remember is Charlie undressing in front of me while the shower warmed up. He motioned to his private section and said "You'll never be a real man until you grow hair on your d*ck. I bet you've never even seen a real c*ck before." My last memory of the situation was Charlie asking me to come and look closely at his private parts. I remember being told to move closer but only being tall enough to be the height of his private area, and nothing more.