Vital

child with a grudge

Truthfully, I don't know who he was -

before the madness swept over -

before the confusion cloaked his mind

That person is somewhere lost long ago in time

"A brain tumor, the size of a golf ball", it was said

A shattered family photo on the wall

He was returned to us with delusions -

and forgotten memories, but we were just glad he wasn't dead

In the panic and disorientation he must have felt

Learning the basic life tools all over again,

not knowing the year or his current wife and child,

there was so much rage and misplaced revenge

Sometimes we pitied him like an unknowing child;

sometimes we hid from him like a callous monster

I watched it all, the objects flying across the room -

and physical abuse that made me question my worth

With time, he improved but he didn't understand -

all the flinching, the distancing, and blind listening -

to the stern orders of a man who used to be the enemy

After all, we were all slowly adjusting to some amount of normalcy

He had the privilege of memory repression

Never felt the guilt or took the responsibility

I was a child with a grudge, carrying all the trauma around

- and learning how to trust a man who had filled me with doubt