Confessions of a Vampire

Dear Mom,

I’ve been trying to figure out what to write for the last two months since I disappeared. So far I haven’t been able to come up with the right words to express everything I want and need to say. But time keeps going by and I know you wonder what happened to me. I’m sure you wonder whether I’m dead or alive and if you could have done anything different. So… I’m going to do my best to explain…

and let you know I’m OK. First you should know that I come by the house often and I see you in my window. I see the pain in your eyes and I am very, very, sorry. I was so involved in trying to find myself I had stopped seeing what I was doing to you and dad. I’m sorry to have hurt you so and I want you to know that I love you both very much. Finally, I think I’m actually in a place where I fit in much better than ever before. Now to explain where that place is, and how I came to be here, this will take some time… so I think I’ll have to start from the beginning.

I think I knew from a very early age that I didn’t quite fit in. I was such a somber and melancholy child. You and dad are so colorful and full of life. I felt like a gray cloud born into a pastel landscape. You are beautiful, cheery and peaches and cream. You always see the good in everything and everyone. And Dad is bold and bright… You both always seem to be so sure of what you want and that everything will work out and be all right.
I would watch you both and wish I too could feel part of that happy, colorful, spirit, you both possess, but I always seem to long for something I couldn’t quite grasp. A questioning thirst I could not quench. I was never satisfied. I know you tried to help me fill the void, but it was impossible to fill and I hurt because of it. I wanted you to see my pain, my awkwardness and know I was different. I didn’t know how to express this, this yearning to you. You just kept trying to understand me and love me for who I was. I think what I needed was for you to understand that I did not understand myself yet and I just wanted you to acknowledge my pain.

You were there when I colored my hair black; my room black and stood by patently as I replaced my wardrobe with black clothing. You loved me, and did not question me. I was having a hard time loving myself. I was not able to accept that such a dark sole as I, could have come from such a beautiful pair as you and dad. I was torn with wanting to be like you and fighting to find out who I am. Then I got the tattoo, you tried to understand but for the first time I saw pain in your eyes. Why had I put such a dark thought on my skin? You would comment on how beautiful I was but I could not see it. I could only see the darkness in myself and the light in you but then when I did see the pain in your eyes, I decided to hide my dark quest from you. I did not want to bring you into my darkness and revisit that anguish I saw in your eyes. I just wanted to know that I wasn’t like you.

Often I would walk in the dark and find the hidden places where other dark kids hung out. I would watch them joke and talk and smoke but still did not find what I was looking for. Then one night I saw him. He was on the far side of the fountain and he looked up at me. He looked me in the eyes and I saw the darkness in his… and I saw true desire… for me. I had never seen in someone else what I saw in myself, the darkness. I could sense the longing in his sole. The same longing I have known for so long and I felt a connection to him, a deep indescribable connection. Before I knew it, I had walked to him with no memory or sensation of moving my legs. The next thing I knew we were standing close to one another. We didn’t speak, I just knew who he was and what he was and what would come next. I had never seen him before but I knew him. “I have been looking for you”, he said. I was both scared and thrilled at once.

Our eyes did not stray from one another. He ran his tongue across his lip and gently over his teeth. I could see the tip of his incisors peek out from his slightly opened mouth. A chill ran up my spine and I felt butterflies in my stomach. Was I just a momentary desire to him? Was I just lunch? For me it would be forever and here forever really does mean forever. I didn’t know what I would be to him but I knew what he would be to me. I stared into his eyes and my knees went weak. He caught me and put his arms around me and then he kissed me. It was at once the happiest, scariest, most wonderful and awful moment in my life. I knew what was wrong with me and what I was looking for but I also realized what I had just lost. I had lost you and dad and my earthly life. I love you both and I did not realize that in finding myself I would lose my life. But I miss you so much and I want you to understand what I have found and that I am ok. There is so much to tell you but it is going to get light soon so I must go, for now. Please, if you read this and can find it in your heart to forgive me, and keep my secret; put the light on by my bed. If I see the light on, I will write you again tomorrow. I have so much to tell you, so much to share… Please tell dad I love him and miss him very much, just as I miss you.

Your loving daughter,

Dyani Claire

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