The first crime I did not commit

The weather was breezy and light.
It was just me and my toys,
alone in a distracted, peaceful world—
that small balcony of the house
my parents built.
I was perhaps four, or five.

Then,
I was scooped up,
dragged into my parents' bedroom.
Voices tense.
Faces demanding.
"Did you take your father's cigarettes?"

I said no.
Because I didn’t.
I truly didn’t.

But the maid told my mother
she’d seen me go into the room.
And I remembered—I had.
But I never saw the cigarettes.
I didn’t even know where they were kept.

Still,
my mother took
The Stick
and struck my behind.

I cried,
and cried.
I didn’t understand what was happening.
I was just playing house.
Now suddenly,
I was a thief.

My mother screamed,
demanded truth.
And I lied—for the first time—
because it hurt.
I didn’t understand how or why,
but it hurt.
And I needed it to stop.

So I pointed
to the bottom of the desk.
She searched.
Found nothing.
Hit me again.

I cried harder,
and pointed to the toy basket.
She made me take out every single one.
One by one.
Corner by corner.
No cigarettes.

She hit me again.
And again.
Until, at last,
I confessed—
falsely—
that I had thrown them out.

And just like that,
the beating stopped.
No more yelling.
No more accusations.

Just me.
And the silence.
And that strange pain
that I couldn’t yet name—
but still felt.

I didn’t take the cigarettes.
I know I didn’t.
But I became the criminal
of a crime I did not commit.

Time passed.
But something stayed.

Not trauma.
Not exactly.
Just a thought,
lodged like a stone under the skin:

"Why was I accused?"

I lied to survive.
But I still lied.
That is wrong, isn’t it?
Even back then,
it plagued my mind.

I remember nightmares—
God condemning me to hell for lying,
but never praising me
for not stealing.

I was afraid of Him after that.
Why would God punish a confession
more than He rewarded restraint?

It seems, in His eyes,
it was still a crime.

And now I see:
once you're already seen as guilty,
truth becomes irrelevant.
I was looked at as if I was possible.
And that made me guilty enough.

I don’t know why it stayed with me.
But it did.
Because it wasn’t fair.
It still isn’t.

No one remembers it but me.
Not my parents.
Not that maid.

But I remember.
And I still live
with the first crime
I did not commit.