Summer, 1946
Summer, 1946
May 11, 2007
By Teak Kilmer
Summer, 1946 … I don’t know
exactly when it started. My childhood was so compressed with trauma that such
distant memories refuse the recollection; but I think I was about six when the
dream began.
The narrow bed was next to
the outer wall, an open window at my feet and another near my head, summer
fragrant breezes hoping to nudge the day’s miseries out of mind; but the task
was Sisaphysisian, and so the nightmare – nightly.
Mostly I could not even nod-off
for fear of yet another visit amid my sleep. It was to last for most of two
decades and often after that appear again. This tarnished gem of a boy, as
sensitive as kittens, was as neglected as baby crocodiles; banished, punished,
mocked.
“He” had witnessed his mother
being wrapped again in white long
sleeved shirts that tie in the back. Her
screaming and railing seemed as strongly surreal as … my degree of desire for
this not to be happening. She slumped
downward only to be hauled up again
by big white uniformed robot men and again
out into the padded wagon and off again
to the
Her violence interrupted her
usual despair, couch by day, bed by night existence. Father ─ numbed from her
and our dismay by alcohol─would punish this little boy for all the darkness. This
wrong he did excuse by what I do not know – perhaps my life-long agitation, his
alcoholism, his likely hypo mania, his disappointment that his namesake was so
distraught, his overwhelm … his sexual attraction to my sister.
So sorely injured in the womb,
and carrying such oppressive genes, I came out raging. Poor, dear, unhappy
mother was lacking in endorphins, neurotransmitters and their like; these supplanted
by toxic psychotropic drugs, likely lead poisoning: a melancholy blight.
It seems I got the worst of
their DNA and that of those who bore them,
and an ad infinitum of generations of not able to walk gracefully, peacefully
on this earth, and so I would awake in terror dripping, wailing – my day-mare had
become my nightmare.
This beautiful, bewildered
tiny spirit showed his damage felt when nightly off he would float naked, cold
and alone into dark, infinite, empty space, forever … forever alone and
cold and naked, hopeless, helpless forever … dark day, darker night.
Yet this nightmare’s view of
death did save my life; took the bloom off suicide, so this door to death, I
held more closed than not, no matter how severe the frights and sorrows of decades
upon decades of unceasing repetitions of most unhappy day. Here there must be some hope, maybe even someday
show its face to me.
As by this fear of death’s convolution,
perhaps some great spirit urged me linger to someday be by fortune kissed … and
at last my cheek is turned in order to receive it … and I can feel the Breath.
A powerful telling of great pain and fear. Well done!
ReplyDeleteMy heart breaks for this little boy, yet he persevered to make poetry from despair.
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