I'm Sorry

T W O

It was the summer of 2004, car horns and heavy tension filled the air. It was like a clock ticking by slowly. The winter months brought about a little peace on the streets, but the hotter the summer, the more violent the concrete jungle seemed. It's amazing how even at a tender age of 4 I understood the motion of the streets, maybe because my home was no different.

As the sunlight gleamed into the dimly lit room I found myself basking in the rays in an attempt to escape to the perfect home I so longed for. These walls held stories, but none of Merry Christmas, Happy Birthdays, or joyful Thanksgivings. No, they held pain, suffering, and screams from the relentless beatings, and illusions of paranoia. I sat and watched as my mother filled her veins with fire, causing her to attempt to tie me to the radiator to be scorched by heat and steam emerging from the radiator valve.

Slaps across the face, and lashes from what seemed to be her favorite, an all black, thick leather spiked tool of torture could easily be seen as normal. The story on this day would be my departure.

As I sat at our small wooden table that appeared to rock with the slightest shift of the wind, the smell of eggs and bacon filled the one bedroom, mold stained apartment. "Here, eat this," she said as she threw the plastic bowl onto the table with an attitude implying that it was such a burden to feed me. I began to eat, but bit by bit something wasn't right.

The unpleasant feeling of nausea and my stomach rolling like raging waters signaled I was about to vomit, but before I could excuse myself, my bowl filled with the contents of my stomach. As if I had done something wrong she began to hit me and scream as she forced my face into the bowl, "Eat it, eat it!" I screamed as I lifted my head to grasp for air, my mouth covered in my own vomit. Much went up my nose and went down my throat as tears began to prick my eyes until turning my tears into lakes.

Like the thunderous sound of God himself returning, I hear a continuous bang at the front door.

"Jane open the door"! It was my next door neighbor, coming to save me once again, but this time I would leave only to become a ward of the state. The New York Foundling would be my new home, at least for now.

Over a period of roughly 6 months, I would enter and depart 5 unstable foster homes; one in particular was Mrs. Jones, who enforced the rule of no one going to the bathroom after a certain time no matter how bad you had to go. Many nights I spent lying in bed, agonized as my bladder swelled to the point I had to relieve myself in the bed where I slept, only to arise in the morning, and be beaten for peeing in the bed. Also her son Josh who faithfully would get drunk or high and launch his size 50 (at least it appeared to be) work boots at my head every night.

It looked as if everywhere that I went the trail of violence was never too far behind.

Now I sat, like a lowly puppy in a pet store window, learning to smile and play into the emotions of potential foster parents scouring the room searching for the perfect child. This in all was sort of ironic being that we were all damaged goods. Eventually I was paired with an older woman and her daughter whom I would later find out, it was the daughter who chose me not the woman. "How would this turnout" my mind only wondered. This was it, I finally been set free from the plague that haunted me everywhere I stepped foot; Where I found my home. But one thing that I learned throughout my journey, though I may have been lost, cased into the sea and battered like ocean waves crashing against the shore; there has always been one person who didn't abandon me and I call him GOD.

"Leave us you fat, ugly, loser who can't get a girlfriend! Stop bothering me and do something productive for once in your life!" A voice as fierce as a hawks claws wrapped around its prey's neck screeched.

The sun shone brightly, with tall, perfectly placed trees casting shadows upon his delicate yet wrinkled skin. The horse trotted slowly and smoothly as I gazed into the eyes of prince charming.