Lobotomy

they called it mercy, the white coats and clipboards, a room with thick walls, sterile, and him sitting there— eyes like rain-soaked concrete. Florida sun spilling in too bright, too harsh, as if to spotlight the damage, to make sense of the silence, the soft snip of scissors cutting away at whatever was left. he used to play cards, talk shop, had a sharp way of cussing, could laugh till his belly shook— but now, he was hollowed out, stitched up like an old doll left to the attic dust. in the end, they called it 'care, ' as he sat there, vacant, a chair in a room with no light. his name was two steps, it took him half an hour to walk one hundred feet to the chow hall, I was a child, twenty years old and it shook me to my very core.