Generational Trauma
naomi bohanan
Broken Bow, Oklahoma
I never wanted us to be the same in any way but today you quit my turning mind from its tendency to turn to images of me sitting in a towering seat of judgment from turning to you at my dinner table when I only invited your sister while you smack your crusty lips and turn rabid squirrel in my family’s already almost empty cabinet searching to hide extra food for later because you might not get any later and you gather it in your fat cheeks that refuse to grow a full beard yet you decide to keep the patchy forest on your face that barely catches the barely chewed food that falls out of your mouth and plants seeds in your pores where you pick from its hefty harvest of mold and thin chin hair from a version of me that gazes down at you from my homemade goldened box throne from when you bend over to pick up your new android phone that you just got a few days ago because you smashed your old one out of anger last week because you lost on fortnite from rolling my eyes at the difficulty of you picking it up because of your fat sweaty fingers and the beer belly you developed at 17 years of age from me scoffing at your attempts to laugh without coughing with a throat that has withstood too much second hand smoke since the age of five when your mom got depressed and went back to old smoking habits that she started when her brothers raped her when your dad got depressed because she finally left him making him regret hitting her for the millionth time so he went back to his old drinking habits so you got depressed and did both for the first time with your fun uncles who encouraged you to have fun with them so you had fun that night with the uncles who raped your mom until she moved out and into the trailer with your dad the uncles who have been depressed since the womb because those were the only nutrients their mother could provide during the pregnancy and to hide my feelings from your sister who was my best friend I’d just leave my dinner table I left my dinner table as you got started on your long string of inappropriate jokes about your dick and they circled around my neck making a noose but I never let it go through with its plan by getting away and locking my bedroom door to release anger on the dingy walls, or messy twin bed you’re a type of bad brain bacteria a bad bacteria a disease that I took shots for when I was a little girl to be immune but apparently the shots didn’t work you believe that you shouldn’t have to work because that’s a woman’s job and a man needs his rest rest for his crowned head from a full day’s work of sleeping because you just want to be validated to justify that your lazy behavior is not a repellant to women and I know your hope is that future girl’s love is truly blind so that she would somehow agree to be with you but I believe that you won’t find her you are the type of guy that would leave a burrito on the ground for weeks and let it mold into a furry monster that you accidentally step on the fourth week when you decide to use your un-cleaned outhouse imitation of a bathroom that sits on the front left wheel of your old trailer home the type to play call of duty for 24 hours turning yourself into a zombie that feeds on chips on that old tiny velvet couch scattered with empty corona cans copenhagen dip and cigarettes the tiny couch in your living room you sleep on that has cat piss stains spread on it like the print of your cat with no name that hasn’t been seen for the past week probably dead on the side of the road near your musty trailer or eaten by the stray dog looking for shelter the type to take a shower once a month to refresh yourself for grand theft auto and it’s not funny that you need to be taken care of like a baby at 20 years old and had your first heart attack at 19 making life harder for yourself and for your sister who stayed and you like to call me your sister but you need to understand that I won’t stay and I wonder about your sister now who I witnessed choosing to stay every day for you back when we were all sophomores in highschool when you hadn’t given her a good reason to besides blood and I hate to say it but I can understand this side of you of us of our people because of seeing it in my own home and hearing the horror stories from my grandma of my own people and I hate to say it but you are an example of my own people and I hate to say it but you’re a Good example of my own people you are suffering within yourself from the past experiences of our ancestors we are the consequences of the cigarettes that we ourselves did not smoke but yet smoke rises and spills out of our lungs and out of our nostrils out of our faded brown pupils and I couldn’t bring myself to understand this notion that we were burning the same way until you lifted my heavy eyelids to see your soul that is not all completely black by pointing to the dark gray smoke signals that continue to rise out of you in a hazy display of remorse and we almost drowned together wrapped up together in Our teardrops of shame that were heavier than the things I’ve ever had to bear but you told me we could carry them together and like the breath from the end of yours words I fell too and rested my small hands on your unwashed swollen ones and swore I swore to the smoke signals that danced around the air when leaving your scarred and hairy chest and then swore again.