personal blog: simon

I fasten my shoelaces and slam the door. the impending urgency not to be alone, to hear the noise outside of me, to be among people. only across the street, if I could make it.

every fiber of me, fighting to get off the floor, struggling, only to be trapped. my father’s fists like stones, enormous and heavy compressing my chest. then a hold on my throat, a tight squeeze.

the house was empty because my father never took such a risk before. he was a different man. still a predator, but angrier, and the possibility of being killed crossed my mind. all my father’s threats to end me if I ever spoke of our secret, summed at that moment. my father’s stare daring me to fight and I was a minuscule bug under his thumb so easily squashed.

how much damage my puny knuckles could possibly have done?

I feverishly cross the street to the bar, praying Kevin would be there. the air denser than before and I am barely breathing.

my hands shake and I push the door open.

I laid chained to the floor. my father pulled my shirt, unfastened my worn out belt, the one given by a friend. another piece of trash my father hated. unzipped my jeans and pulled them down ferociously. but something made him reconsider and my father left my body like it was an object, exposed. my shirt twisted to a knot. my bruises swelling. my lips cut and bleeding. briefly, free falling from the circumstances, preoccupied with the cracked plaster in the ceiling, simply to escape…

my father’s trophy… me.

I lift my head to the ceiling as the blood starts to trickle from my nose.

everything stops like in movies when the background freezes as the main character idles succumbing to the dread of life. then within second, the reel zips, tripling its normal speed like a bullet train and the main character still stands dwindling.

with ease, I lived in denial, succumbed to grief and guilt, and when the reality strikes, like the bellowing clock in the centre of the square, I fall.

the imminent doom… and then everything goes dark.

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© simon whittle — second act