He and Her

HE AND HER

He knows they’re staring at him. He’s walking the streets with his head looking to where he can only gain a view of people’s ankles, but he knows they’re staring at him. He can feel it. The judgment doesn’t hurt as much as it should; the humiliation that their scornful tones brand him with at a volume they wrongfully assume he cannot hear does not sting or cut at his skin as he is more than aware that it should. He’d grown numb to the wounds words could force upon his body, his mind. He’d run out of skin to scar many years ago.

“Ya pathetic piece’a shit! Ya don’t deserve to be loved; not by me, not by ya muva, not even by ya’self!”

He pulls the coat’s torn edge closer to his body, keeping the wind from biting at his raw flesh as a shiver runs down his spine. He is numb to the scarring tendency of words but he is not numb to fear; that was impossible. Superficial pain was nothing to him: a firm hand forcing his head into the wall was just the same as a stubbed toe; not eating solid food for weeks was basically missing a single meal.

“Does I needs ta snuff ya? Drink ya water and yous best be glad ya gots any to begin with, ya trash!”

His ribs are ready to escape from the confines of his pale skin. Every time he runs his hands through his hair strands come flying out with ease, eager to get further away from the intoxicating thoughts his mind constantly produces. His entire body is falling apart, giving up on him after fifteen years of constant resilience. The mockery that the wealth he passes throws is not appreciated but is effectively ignored.

“Shlock-ass kid! Ya bests not think’a standin’ up till’m finished with ya!”

Scratching at the bruises on his arms, the new overlapping and completely covering the old, he knows exactly how much pressure will cause the tender skin to break open and release the blood that it so delicately contained. He knew exactly how much force he had to use against himself in order to be in control of something in his life. Even if that control destroyed him, it was control.

“Yous mine ya know? I’m ya God; I decide if ya live or die; if ya go thirsty or drink; yous is nothing without me.”

His brain is screaming at him now. It’s been doing this for years, dictating where he goes and how he acts and what he says without his consent. He wants to live so desperately but as he looks to his left at the busy street he has this unwavering desire to step out onto the busy traffic and let God have his way with him, should he exist or just be a fabrication of his disturbed mind. His mind screams at him louder and louder to jump out of the bustle of people and into the bustle of vehicles. Wouldn’t it be easier? Wouldn’t that be his best chance to gain some sort of nirvana?

“Yu’ll neva get the chance’ta leave, son, and if I catch ya even dreamin’ ‘bout it I’ll whip ya a hundered times more, ya hear?”

“Look at me now,” he mutters to himself in spite of his tormentor, low enough so that he cannot be heard by others over their obvious judgment of the young man with torn clothes, hard features, and dirt from head to toe.

He clutches at his heavily bruised wrist, spinning the watch around the joint with habitual precision. He looks down at it and finds it is broken, stuck at 5:38, the time of his escape. He’d fallen ungainly the two stories in order to escape from the wrath of his own flesh and blood, the wrath he had endured for the better part of his 17 years. For the most part of his 17 years, in fact.