On the Wounds:
You know the part of the movie where the villain is revealed? Where you’re left stunned that you’d been face-to-face with them the entire time without an inkling that they were the culprit? Where you can’t believe how obvious it was the entire time?
“Oh yeah. I was eating dinner with my brother when my mom said she had to go away for a while and I cried and didn’t want her to leave, so she took us with.”
That’s the story I tell.
With a wave of my hand I expel any importance, any attachment to the memory.
But I can taste the rice. It’s unseasoned. It’s dry.
As dry as the burnt chicken breast my six year old hands cannot cut because my limbs are too heavy with the weight of holding in every “please don’t leave me” I want to cry.
“See the targets,” my coach says.
How tricky, I think in response, to maintain an instinct to fight but to be able to SEE what’s in front of you.
After a life of blindly clawing at anyone and anything that threatens to leave me.
Human connection is the antidote to a lifetime of self-protection.
But without seeing the targets, how can you fight efficiently? Effectively?
“Please don’t leave me,” I think as he texts less and less.
I’m 6. I’m sitting at a glass table. My throat is thick with a choked sob and macerated chicken that won’t quite go down.
“Please don’t leave me,” I think as a nurse mentor chastises me behind a closed door.
I’m 6. My brother locks eyes with me and begs me to shut up.
“Please don’t leave me,” I think as I perceive every flicker of discontent in the faces around me as disapproval.
I’m 6. I’m in my pajamas. My legs are too short to touch the floor. I can’t look at her, but I know I’ve made her sad again.
Seeing the targets comes with practice. Finishing the fight requires another burst of effort.
“Thirty seconds!”
I swung blindly for two minutes and thirty seconds. I am tired all the way down to the marrow of my bones.
I am 6 and my arms are heavy.
But I can see the target now. And I can do anything for thirty seconds.