Untitled

A child, 

I watched the delft pottery plates crash to the floor.

Unblinking I stood

And then blinking, wincing eyes shut

so that I did not have to number 

the sharp-edged bits that cracked and burst

into a million particles of dust.

I learned that I must always walk cautiously cross the screaming floorboards of my parents’ house.

My mom and dad were exemplary:

The perfect example of how to take a marriage and make it explode.

From the nucleus of four white-washed walls, they bombed the hell out of their own family.

But when I watched the family photo fall from the wall for the umpteenth time

I could not help but light my own dynamite.

If my parents were going to fight this hundred year war I would not be the one to hide in the trenches.

I ran through those landmines

setting as many off as I could,

tossing verbal grenades over shoulders and never once looking back.

I wrapped shrapnel wounds up with cartoon bandaids

leaving some open: my own red badge of courage.

I wore those wounds bravely

baring my battle bruises

convincing the world that I deserved a purple heart.

Black and blue, I was unaware that the deepest injuries take years to surface.

And now that the dust has settled

and the rooms that once echoed hurled insults have grown quiet

I find that I myself have grown quiet too.

We do not talk of the injustices of war.

We do not talk of the casualties of front line combat.

We do not talk. For the sake of victory,

we do not.

But I know that somewhere boiling inside the core of my being

exists a lifetime of experience that aches to be spoken into modern-day existenceㅡ

needs to be cried out

known

told

untangled

released.

My war stories, though invisible to others in memory,

are as real to me as this pen in my hand and these words that I write:

place and

time are of little consequence when those

same wounds

deepen with each lingering moment of silence.

Reviews

[wordman]

a great and touching write !