Sitting
down on my futon, with a white t-shirt covered in blood, I inspected
the pool of tears left on my lap where her head was laying, thinking
"dam this is hell." The Police officer on the scene told me
"this too shall pass," to pissed to understand I brushed
the phrase off and fell deep within my hopeless mind.
My
head was pounding, the screaming in the next room stopped the blue
and red lights faded as the police went off, and It was QUIET in the
HOUSE. My thoughts
E-c-h-o-e-d
in this silence....Errrrrrrrrrrrrrr,
the door from across the hall opened, and all of sudden 3 pairs of
wide eyes were looking at me.
At
once, I snapped back from that endless abyss of time and space that
held my thoughts captive. " Man you guys need stop wearing my
clothes to bed, it is a shirt, not a night gown," I said in a
stern manner. "We're hungry," my little brother cried.
It
was apparently feeding time. After all that occurred, it was sobering
cooking for these little ones, I wonder how much they actually
absorbed. "Shit," I burned myself, hard to believe my body
is still numb from all the fighting. The youngest tugged at my shirt,
"your not going to be mean to us anymore are you. " What,"
I said in shock "remember when mommy and daddy were..."
While
looking at the fresh burn on my hand, I remembered. Things were going
to get really bad, when my brother and step dad were bowing
up to each other, but before things got to blows my mother
grabbed my older sister and through her to the floor. So I
quickly grabbed the hands of my youngest sibling and pulled them to
the nearest room My little sister begin to pull away, screaming and
hitting my arm, "I want to see mommy."
With thunder and all the rage I could muster I screamed "GET IN
THE FUCKING ROOM!!!" instantly regained my composure, with a
drill sergeant like spirit I instructed the oldest "get in the
room, close the door, lock it, and don't leave into the noise stops,"
Like a soldier she responded sharply.
I
crouched down"No sweetie I'm not going to be mean anymore I love
you very much, and your food is going to get cold, so less talking
and more eating." With a mouth full of unprocessed food, she muttered
"good, I like you when you're nice, not when you're not nice."
Too
excited to sleep, they asked for stories, to calm their spirits and
one by one they fell to sleep. I slept at the foot of their bed, to
make sure they were safe.
I
woke up to a numbing sensation in my right arm. "Ok, I need to
get up," I said to myself in a rather decrepit voice. When I
finally opened my eyes, I came to find, these three little ones had
migrated from the bed, to the floor to my back and for arm, huddled
like penguins. My oldest little sister ten said "
we didn't want the bed monster to get you."
Thinking
long and hard " shit, was I protecting them last night or were
they protecting me." Now at the ripe old age of twenty one and years of age
perfecting the art of procrastination, of course while in the
library at my college typing away. I know now "if I did not
stand for them, I would have fallen for myself."