free writing

14 May 2015

When my parents fight, it’s the worst kind of pain imaginable. It’s not a sudden stab and release of pain, it’s like incessant pulling at your heart and stomach of a feeling of anxiety or sadness or anger, or maybe a mixture of all of them. When my parents fight, I feel the worst kind of nostalgia; I remember their laughter and their togetherness, and I remember the times I had as a child, oblivious to every fault of the world. When my parents fight, my brother and sister look at me with hope on their small tiny faces and sadness in their big eyes. They look at me for answers and assurance of the best outcome possible. When my parents fight, I can’t always provide that. I’m left alone in my own vortex of fear and sadness and I can’t give my siblings the answers they want or need. When my parents fight, my siblings cry. My little, tiny, sweet sister hold her twin in her arms as he sobs out of uncertainty and doubt and sadness and anxiety. And while she holds him, she keeps looking at me for answers I can’t provide. When my parents fight, everyone fights and not just with each other, but with themselves. We automatically separate from each other in a time when what we crave most is togetherness. We shut ourselves in our room and try to forget everything, concentrating on winning levels of video games we’ve already won and texting people we don’t even like using the same jokes as always, and cleaning until not a single thing is out of line except our minds, which despite all our efforts, remain on the loud profanities and stinging promises being yelled on the other side of the door we shield ourselves with.  When my parents fight, I forget the blues of the sky and concentrate on the greys. I forget the yellow sunshine my mother sat in as she smiled at me and the bright red of the cricket ball my father balled to me. I forget the pink of my sister’s smile as she read her favorite Junie B. Jones novels and I forget the blue and white of my brother’s soccer ball, which he practices with every day. I remember the black of the shadows I stare at, which continue moving so gracefully beneath my parents even though they curse their hatred of the other right above. I remember the transparent tears on my siblings’ faces and the opaque defensive look in their too young faces. When my parents fight, I feel the little energy I had draining away into the dark abyss of my mind as I struggle to remain upright. I feel the dark voices in the back of my head charging to the front and taking over rationality, pessimism drowning out rationale. When my parents fight, I put on a playlist of depressing songs and wallow selfishly in my own emotion. I put on arm around my sister and rub my brother’s back and stare into space, unable to shake myself out of a coma of shock and sadness. When my parents fight, I put on my playlist of sad songs and curl up and pretend like I’m in a music video, where my sadness ends at the call “CUT” and the sadness in my eyes is just a mirage of the inherent happiness that must be somewhere within. When my parents fight, I wonder how they could ever expect me to get married and force any children I might have into living in this hell. I wonder how any happiness is possible with another person and I become angry at everyone, acknowledging what is in my eyes a fact: that happiness comes from within and without. I isolate myself mentally, holding onto just my siblings physically. When my parents fight, I sob, alone and locked in my bathroom so my siblings won’t see. When my parents fight, I read, trying to lose myself in a tale. When my parents fight, I clean, trying to physically organize when my mind is a mess.

When my parents fight, yelling right outside my room, their loud voices penetrating through the physical and mental barriers I put up, I write.