Six deaths by thirteen.

I have died inside, so many times, I wonder how many I have left– these lives. What drives me in an existence so seemingly lonely? Only seven years old, I fell in a pool and broke my ankle, my father didn’t believe it was legit, so he made me stand on it. That was the first time I remember feeling dead inside. Just alive and along for the ride.

At nine, I accidentally caught a quarter of an acre in our neighborhood on fire and felt another part of me expire. By twelve I tried to delve into riding no-hands on a bike, and like any parents worst fear, I was t-boned by a car revving up to second gear-- forty-five miles per hour and I showered them with glass, shattered by the back of my head. Dead. Not for the accident itself, but in concern of punishment for the medical bill. Still there were more ways to die.

No lie, not but a year later I ate asphalt with a front flip over my handle-bars. No stars, just a fractured thumb, some broken teeth, and hyper extended knee… yet that wasn’t even the worst to see. From my forehead past my lips, the gravel ground out dips, mangling the right side of my face. My smile reduced to a bloody broken mouth. Twin cried the second she saw me, before I’d even seen myself; already putting my emotions on the shelf-- but when I asked why she cried she didn’t bother trying to lie, “Have you seen you’re face?!”

It was a race to the bathroom to look at my reflection…which cause my heart to stall in rejection. Disbelief in the bloody gravel dug relief of my cheek, forehead and chin... angry red scrapes where my skin has been, making me briefly glad I hadn't let them touch my face. Though suddenly I dreaded getting back to my parents place.

In my case, I cost them a lot of money-- not that they didn't love me, but it was hard on them financially. As it was I had to get a ride home from another mother to begin with. I wasn't looking forward to any tiff with my parents, or their inter-argumentative interference.

Alas, they looked me over with guarded worry but didn’t think it bad enough to warrant immediate attention. Retention of these memories still cause pain and mental drain-- they sat and ate dinner while I waited in disdain to be taken to the hospital -- and it shredded my soul. Thirteen years old… I’d already died five times inside, and I’d die one more that night by causing a fright.

Torturous cleaning and bandaging aside, I was patched up and waiting by the front door of the hospital for the ride home. I was alone. A woman and her daughter, not but six, walked in. I made the mistake of smiling and the little girl started crying, wailing “I don’t want to go in there! No mommy! I don’t want to go in there!” and all I could do was stare. Broken inside and out. No doubt, I died again, but it wouldn’t be the last inner death of my life. Sometimes I think I was born for strife.

|| another-proser ||