A Soldier With No Weapns

The summer I wish I could take back

There is a scar, so faint that only the sharpest eyes can see. But if you knew it was there you would see its jagged curves and raised edges. You would wonder how such a scar came to be along my forehead, but of course the story remains a secret. A simple day turned to crashing glass and flying limbs. To broken screams and yet another trip to the hospital. To forced medication to calm my flailing sister fighting off the doctors with all her strength before she withered on the bed in an induced sleep. Me sinking down against the wall, my arm in a cast my forehead slowly bleeding to crumple on the floor, the slow sobs building in my chest just waiting to bubble over.
    Wisconsin…who the hell in their right mind comes to Wisconsin? It’s a good thing then that I haven’t been in my right mind since the shoe first dropped almost ten years ago. I don’t know why I am the one who got shipped off to live with my aunt for the summer. I didn’t attack anyone and yet I get punished. Story of my life. With my arm in a sling I carry my baggage through the airport to meet my aunt. The weight on my arm creates a slow throbbing of pain but I don’t mind it, it reminds me that I’m alive. I meet her in the terminal a few minutes later and I am reminded of how rough I look when she surveys me as I approach her. It only takes seconds for her eyes to start to fill with tears. She quickly took my bag and turned away, hoping I wouldn’t notice her reaction. But who could miss the same face I make when I look in the mirror?
    Living on a farm isn’t what its cracked up to be. Waking up at 5 am to a rooster crowing on you window sill only makes me wish I knew how to use a gun. Every day I’m there is just another reminder that at some point I have to return home, to the constant fear of a fight or another trip to the hospital. 13 days of peace and then I am getting thrown back into war. A soldier with no weapons.
    13 days come…and 13 days go. I am back home and not a single thing has changed. She says she is sorry, but the sympathy doesn’t reach her eyes. I nod and hide in my room. I burrow beneath the covers and squeeze my eyes shut. I focus on making myself disappear. Maybe if I try hard enough one day it will happen.
    I am out of work for two weeks. Two weeks to sit, two weeks to think, two weeks to relive my nightmare. The only difference with this one is that I can’t wake up.
    I haven’t talked to her since I got back. She speaks but I don’t answer. I don’t leave the house an I don’t leave my room unless its entirely necessary. I don’t like people seeing me looking like a battered house wife and answering the recurring question “What happened?”. My urge to spit out Rachel happened is to strong to avoid, so I don’t leave, and I don’t think, and I don’t feel. Because in real life, all that takes to much effort.
    I go back to work after two weeks of having far to much time on my hands. But its hard to escape your problems when they are two registers ahead with a far to high pitched voice and a cackle that could travel for miles. All I can think of is if the honey glazed ham I am currently holding would clear the ten foot distance if I threw hard enough. Thankfully my thoughts are interrupted by the short squat woman in front of me shoving coupons in my face. If only there was always something to distract me.
    The summer is supposed to be your escape from school. Something a kid looks forward to from the day school starts in September every year. I on the other hand need those seven hours a day where I know someone isn’t going to send me hurtling into a wall or called a fat b***h for the fourth time that day. But the truth is I have never been a real kid, I never got the chance.
    Its amazing how much can happen in one summer. The summer of 2009, the summer where my life changed, the summer where I became numb, and the summer that made me wish that my parents had stopped after one child. I guess you cant always get what you wish for….
 

Reviews

[sayed Mudasir Ali]

Intresting article with the great imagery and everything causes pain and hunger at the end.

[54321]

very sad. either you have a very intricate and amazing imagination or you are recounting a life experience. Either way this was written fantastically. i feel like i am the author it is so detailed.