She’s Not Yours

The screaming began early that day. I remember the sound of shattering glass like a bee sting to my eardrums. I grasped my ears to alleviate the pain but my hands could never cover the sound of chaos. Scrambled eggs dripped down the wall onto the crumbles of what once was a plate. Steam rose from the heap as if the fury had transcended through her hands and into her breakfast. It was a typical morning. I had risen before everyone to enjoy my only time of peace in the house. I played with my dolls, imagining them in scenarios I had never been in, scenes of carefree happiness. I had created a harmonious balance of love and understanding, of two souls intertwined, anticipating the chance for their love to blossom - then CRASH!! I had grown accustomed to the inherent chance that my fantasies would be pushed back into the depths of my thoughts, lying dormant until one day they would finally be able to expel themselves from the darkness. I forget what the commotion was about that day, but it was all the same, meaningless anger. Fury hath no reason. Even a sane person can lose control when confronted by madness. I saw both sides of the coin, the Jeckel and the Hyde, love transform into vileness. I became numb to insanity. That was my normal. My mother began to clean up the mess, noticing me cowering behind the door to the basement watching her silently, and she realized what she had done. Regaining her composure, she looked at me and said, “I’m so sorry.” For what exactly she was sorry was deeper than what had just happened. That short phrase held more meaning than a thousand words coupled with a thousand more hugs and kisses. She was sorry for the poisoning of my innocence. She was sorry for subjecting me to madness. She was sorry that she did not have the means to offer respite, that she did not have the courage to get out. I am not sorry for any of these things. It was the karma we had to bare, it was my karma, too. Perhaps when I realized the extent of my grandmother’s illness, that it was not just a bad temper, that she had no control over her behavior, and I realized it would never end and I began to long for tranquility. I knew it was too late for me, so I longed that my own children would not suffer the way I did, that they would have a peaceful life, that they would know love and harmony. Surely they would not suffer the way I did, my suffering was enough… The same way, I suppose, my mother longed for her children when she lived through this hell herself. I was four years old and already thinking about these things. On the porch, my grandmother paced back and forth madly with a cigarette in hand muttering filthy smut audible enough for me to understand but incoherent enough for me to let it flow out of my memory and back into the abyss from which it came. I wondered how she could be so tormented. What she experienced only the devil could know. No mere mortal could spur this type of wrath upon her own progeny. Her pain was so deeply rooted that it was intriguing. How could such a magnificent creature such as her exist? She held all the pain and anger, love and beauty the world knew, so much so that one minor leak spurted out like a geyser. She cursed the wretched and the good equally. She had been supernaturally separated from us mortals and we could never judge nor comprehend what she experienced. I approached her innocently and asked why she was so angry. My child’s voice ignorant of prejudice must have temporarily relieved her mind from the burden she carried. Her wild eyes looked at me full of love and amnesia and she convinced me nothing happened and she had not been angry. Red from embarrassment I looked down at my feet, ashamed of this juxtaposition she created. She told me what pretty feet I had and in the sweetest voice began to sing a happy song. I walked away to survey my mother’s condition, hearing her weep from a distance made me decide to go back to my dolls. I heard my grandmother mutter dirty, rotten bitch under her breath as I turned the corner and descended to the quiet basement. I went back to my play station and sat cross-legged on the floor where my dolls had been involved in a deep exchange before their bubble burst. The moment had been butchered and my dolls once alive with hope had been sent back to their inanimate state. With a heavy sigh I leaned back onto the floor, my head spinning from what I had just witnessed. My mind began to race with too many thoughts to process intellectually so they became whirls of shapes and billowy forms. Swarms of dark clouds covered my eyes only allowing flecks of white light with intermittent flashes of color. I watched this storm occur before my eyes as I felt my head rotate lower going underneath my body. I lost my sense of gravity. Frightened by this sudden lack of control I opened my eyes and jerked my head off the floor.