The night my father decided to erase me from existence was not filled with the chaotic shouting or the explosive violence one might expect from a family breaking apart. Instead it was defined by a terrifying and quiet certainty. At nineteen years old I stood in the shadows of our backyard and watched a man who was supposed to be my protector move with the cold efficiency of a stranger. He dragged the contents of my life out into the grass as if he had been rehearsing this betrayal for years.

My clothes my beloved notebooks filled with dreams my sturdy work boots and the cheap laptop I had slaved away an entire summer to afford were all piled into a rusted metal barrel. He didn’t stop at my belongings he went for the things that carried the weight of my soul including my mothers old coffee mug and the framed graduation photo I had kept tucked away like a treasure. When he struck the match the flames rose with a hungry roar curling paper and warping plastic into blackened unrecognizable shapes. He looked at me through the heat and the haze and uttered words that were meant to break my spirit forever telling me that this was the inevitable consequence of my disobedience.