Explosive Memories

Explosions are the most distinctive memory of my childhood.

The shrapnel from my parents failed marriage buried deep in my back making it that much harder to stand up straight and walk.

The deafening roar of my mother’s voice as she screams at my father, “GO FUCK YOURSELF, SOMEDAY THE KIDS WILL SEE YOU FOR THE MAN YOU REALLY ARE.”

The whiplash I receive as she tears me by my arms away from the man who assisted in making my brother and me.

The fogginess in my brain as I begin to forget that it’s not normal to feel afraid of your own mother, that it’s not normal to feel you are two different people spread between two different homes, between two different sets of parents, between two sets of rules.

I Still feel the initial heat of her hands against my skin as she punishes me for answering the phone and saying “Hi, daddy” to her new husbands boss.
I did not know that it was wrong at the time because I was merely six, but she made sure I would never forget.

I feel the safety of my bunker underneath hangers and clothes as I hum a song to drown out her rage, to drown out my brother’s pain, to drown out my tears.

I still feel the anxiety and trauma caused by her explosive decisions, by her cheating body that could not be loyal to the man she made vows to, by the lies she told her own children, by the fear she struck in the heart of everyone who has ever loved me.

I still have not dug that shrapnel out, because when I try to, she explodes and throws me back to the ground with my hands above my head; a sign of submission and surrender.

No mother, one day your children saw you for the woman you really are.