癒合 Yùhé - Heal

Sorrowful

Sorrowful
When He was five, He got his first skateboard. It was everything A boy ever wanted as a little kid, Never leaving that thing alone. The child would ride until mother or father got sick of it, bringing him back into the house as normal parental instinct. One evening though he continued riding long past mother's calls to come in. Father was running after him to bring him inside. but he thought it was a game. He kept riding. Giggling. until he fell from the board hitting a rock. He would cry painfully from the fresh wound in his small knee. It burned with soreness even after it was cleaned, but father didn't care. He lifted the small boy off the ground, dusted him off and proclaimed. "stop your crying child, boys don't cry." He held his breath to stop the heaving in his lungs wiped the tears from his own soft cheeks. And walked to the house thinking, "boys don't cry. Boys can't cry." The boy kept that in Mind for the next time. But the next times kept coming and all he heard were those three horrid words that confused  and invalidated him every Time. The next time came when the child was 15, he chose to pick a fight with one of the older kids, they had been messing with a friend. The friend had been going though some things and this was the last situation he needed to be in. He tried to coax the guy to calm down but just got angrier. He ended up hitting him. Everything went blurry and the tears started to fall, He'd never felt that form of pain before. Everyone started laughing and mocking boys don't cry as he blinked back the tears and went to the Nurse. He called his mom to be picked up after hearing he would be suspended for 4 days because of "fighting." After that was a haze except for one sentence spoken from the principal in the room. "Quit whining over there. Boys shouldn't cry." This sentence choked him back, a heat feeling filled his head. He wiped the tears and walked to the bathroom to wash the blood from his nose off his face. Boys don't cry. The last time those three words brushed his mind was almost 3 years later. The child was hiding in his room from his parents, attempting to keep quiet as they slept in the room across from his own. Holding his mouth pressing at the flesh of his cheeks he suffocated the sobs that choked him once before as the burning tears ran down the sides of his face. The boy he tried so hard to protect hadn't made contact for months. He was found lifeless in the woods with 2 bottles of vodka stolen from his father paired with Valium and Klonopin bottles thrown about him on the earths floor in a sticky pile. His mother found him and called the 17 year olds house phone but couldn't speak from the trauma. His father ended up having to tell the news. Towards the end of the night The boy could not control a bone in his body as He crept to the bathroom door. A shower it would muffle the crys, But he did not make it. 'boys don't cry, boys don't cry.' was screaming thoughts as violent sobs burned his throat and lungs. Mother ran out to the hallway holding her son tightly. He was weak and breathless from the fit but kept fighting to get away. Hiccup like sounds came from within as he pushed at her, trying to get alone. After relentless attempts of struggling he'd stop. Collapsing into the woman's arms crying almost harder than last. He would continue on like this for days convincing himself that "boys can cry."
-k.j.f