In Search of Such a Place
I stare at the picture of us that I haven’t stopped to look at for years. She is 7 at the aquarium. She wears an orange sundress, her hair is in pigtails. She flashes a grin with her front teeth missing. She holds up a peace sign. You stand next to her, smiling as well. Your arm wraps around her. Somehow I can’t bring myself to crumple this picture in my shaking hands. In this one moment we just looked so happy. Your smile and the way you made her smile have me wishing I could remember you like this. But those hopes quickly wither away with the memory of her finding a corner to huddle in beyond your sight. So why did you go and take it all away from us?
I hate to admit it, but I’m not that different from her. Maybe the only real difference is that I pretend. I laugh harder in hopes that it might erase the way in which you tangled the wires of my brain. I raise my chin higher in hopes that it will make me feel like I am a little more than just your subject. But when I take my heavy bag off after a long day, I find myself looking for that same corner that I looked for years ago as I rub my tense shoulders.
Deep down inside I know it is not just her who you hurt. It is me as well. I wonder if I am eternally fated to remain the way you left me. Your palm has rippled through the waters of the years, the ripples reaching me even at my grown age. It does not discriminate between eight and eighteen. I run and I run, but everywhere I look taunts me. Is there such a place, far away enough, where your touch does not exist?
When I hear your voice outside my door, and when I hear you knock, I have had enough. The tears on my face are getting itchy and snot rolls down past my chin. I snatch my favorite ceramic mug and throw it at the door. It breaks into shatters of pink and green on the floor. I wonder if that will finally speak to you because I know my words did not.
