Dear God, Make Me a Bird {7}

***Readers Beware***
These are true stories that may shock you — anger and haunt you. Posts under this category may contain disturbing content that could upset or trigger individuals. (Contains Explicit Language)

Click the link below for the complete anthology: Injustice: My Bell Jar Diaries stories {1-7} as well as supporting pieces.

https://youlildickens.com/injustice-my-bell-jar-diaries/

Just as I chose to share, you chose to read. Thank you for continuing to do so and comment!

In our household, there were things you just didn’t do, there were things you wouldn’t even entertain as a possibility out of pure unadulterated fear. But there was one and only one time I ever dared —

I ran. Ran and hid from him.

We were standing right outside the sheet metal barn, which was much larger than our house, you could see their skewed priorities. My mother was backing up the trailer of hogs and we had to get them into their respective pens. The steel trailer door swung open wide with its’ familiar creak; a starter pistol for horrible things to come. The hogs ran every which way, we were rounding them up, corralling them into two different pens. How were we supposed to anticipate an animals’ every move? We couldn’t and, sometimes one or two would get by.

That day, I let two get by me. I sighed and shouted, SORRY! I’m sorry, sir. I sprinted trying to get ahead of them but I couldn’t. Out of breath and filled with an overwhelming sense of impending dread I heard him say, Pull your head out of your ass and move! DAMN IT! Can’t you do anything right?! Your mistake. You fix it. He wouldn’t let anyone else come help me and I couldn’t seem to get the hogs to turn on my own. I turned my head to look back but he was already there shouting, spitting his vitriol in my face, I’m sick of your bullshit! What the hell is wrong with you? What is so hard about this?

The next thing I knew, everything started to spin, I was rolling over onto my stomach in the grass extremely disoriented, holding my right ear. Get on your feet! Up, up, up! TO-DAY! He had hit me on the side of my head, hand cupped, next to my ear. Happened before but never this hard. Every time I went to stand, I’d fall back down. All I could hear was a shrill ringing, so loud it drowned out his shouting. I saw his mouth moving but no words came out. I secretly relished in that moment because nothing and no one could silence him. At any rate, it didn’t last, my hearing was restored, the ringing retreated, and he charged.

The sounds of crunching screeching metal, mixed with my scream and my mother’s gasp. Well — it’s a sound one does not readily forget.

I finally stood up just in time for the big push. A classic shove right into the sheet metal barn. He shoved me with such force I fell backward through the barn’s framework. The sounds of crunching screeching metal, mixed with my scream and my mother’s gasp. Well — it’s a sound one does not readily forget. Half in and half out, I laid there on my back unsure of how to proceed. I decided to do the unthinkable, the impossible, the stupid thing — RUN. I got up and ran as fast as my little legs would take me. I didn’t have a cornfield but I had the woods.

Twigs snapping, leaves crunching, blackberry bushes ripping my arms, my hyperventilating filled the air around me, and I didn’t dare look back for fear that terror would find me.

Twigs snapping, leaves crunching, blackberry bushes ripping my arms, my hyperventilating filled the air around me, and I didn’t dare look back for fear that terror would find me. I tumbled down the ravine on the far East side of our property, past the pond, down the side of the split sandstone rock. I burrowed underneath the rock’s crevice. I knew he wouldn’t be able to find me here. I remembered watching Forrest Gump and seeing Jenny run away from her Father. I got down on my knees and prayed just like her. My head bent, my trembling hands pushed together, my breath, I was still trying to catch, swung my hair back and forth away from my tear streaked face. I prayed the same prayer.

Dear God, make me a bird. So I could fly far. Far Far away from here.

In the movie, she didn’t turn into a bird but she didn’t have to live there anymore. I shut my eyes tighter and hoped for the same. I didn’t turn into a bird that day and I was not as lucky as Jenny. None of us were.