Frozen

You just stood there naked, frozen in time, staring at the shower. There was just the shell that remained as I sat on the hallway floor watching. 27 holes in the wall, all showing the map of pain. Holes in the hallway where he raised you by the arm, Dangled you in the air, hit you across the back, dropped you curled up in a pile, started walking away, turned back and kicked you with a smile on his face when you were 6. Holes in the bedroom where he took your innocence away when you were 4. I so much wish I knew. Thin spray of blood on walls before bedroom door, dried and crusty, reasons for it by now forgotten. You keep staring at the place where the physical pain and mental obliteration began. Your eyes do not blink and are blank. Pain and memories suspended in time. Your shoulders drop, you stumble, I put a towel over you and hold you. You are absent from your shell. Mourning the loss of the child you should had been.