Forgiveness in violation

Some things in life break easily.

I encountered a great many breakables during the arduous process of growing into my own skin: My Grandmother’s best china in the high cupboards, the dry sticks from which I took so much pleasure whacking my sister on the tender flesh behind the knee, the tail-bone cracked from falling nearly two stories out of the ancient walnut tree in my grandfather’s backyard. These things, I learned, snapped and shattered easily, faster than I could blink an eyelash, and with very little effort on my part. They existed, whole and unfractured one moment, glittering brightly, and within a breath, the essence was gone, and I was left gazing blankly at a pile of dulling debris, a mere shadow of the former, splendid spectacle.

Before, I wasn’t a breakable object; I was the cupboard guarding the dishes, the tall, strong walnut tree cradling so many fragile limbs. I was sturdy as the horses I spent so much time riding, the strong rhythm of the pounding hooves on steady earth, able to withstand hours of sun, rain, and languishing muscles in the biting winds. I dreamed of wide expanses of earth, framed by endless blue skies, and days spent without restraint, the world at my fingertips. I lost myself in those dreams, lost myself in the brightest blue skies the eye could never behold. There was never any doubt that I would always feel that way. I was young, invincible by right. But in the end, it wasn’t those biting winds or punishing rain storms that would erode away my invincibility, my effortless youth. It is only people who maintain the power to manage that magnitude of design, and it requires the efforts of but one to send even the mightiest of walnut trees crashing to the soil.

“You want to see your father happy, don’t you? This would make him so unhappy with you. He might not ever bring you out here to see him again. What would he think of you? Besides, he’s such a good friend to me. And no one would believe you…”

He wasn’t forgiving. With each harsh touch, every shattering blow, through every sharp slash of dulling pain, I, that strong, towering walnut tree of my youth, cracked. The pulsing, steady rhythm of my hoof beats wavered, dimmed to the point of bare audibility beneath the drowning roar of his angry whispers, leaving behind the broken, glittering shards of that elusive invincibility, dulled within the shadows of my withered shell, and left dusted with naught but the memory of a time violently cast into the past.

He was afraid. Afraid of getting caught, afraid of being punished, afraid of his own taboo feelings being exposed to the world that had come to so highly respect him. A teacher, a friend, and a father, he was expected to uphold high standards, be a model for the generation to come. He knew the standards, felt the pressure of them, a vise clamping harshly with every violation of a childhood torn asunder. He convinced, goaded, placed the seed of guilt securely within the whispered threats, numbing pain, guilt-lent harsh punishments, childish accusations, and, finally, empty apologies begetting a hasty retreat back into his safe world. He bought the desired silence, sounding loudly over protestations, his violation a blind attempt to excuse himself from the iron grip of all those expectations, if only for the space of those minutes in time.

I dream often, waking in a cold sweat from nightmares of his creation, and wonder if, somewhere across the expanse of earth, he is not waking from nightmares of his own. It would be so gratifying, somehow a revenge of my own, to know that his sleep is as unsatisfying as my own, that, like myself, the rest he craves is left hanging as little more than a teasing thread before his groping hands, his waking hours a hazy fog of incredibility. But I’ve come to know better than to believe in a fairytale creation of my own wont, accepting the likelihood of his indifference with a resignation borne of so many years of silence.

Yet it is only within those nightmares, an acceptance of a haunting past, that I will find the life that was tossed so aside so carelessly. As gratifying as the intrinsic pleasure proffered by a rapid revenge would be, it is a useless pleasure, at best. It is the forgiveness within the violation that promises a permanent solace, and will offer a respite from the debilitating whispers of the past, from the dark dreams of the present.

I will get lost in dreams of unbreakable blue skies again.