Coming Home
Warriors’ hearts, hardened for battle, reserve expectation the mind wages war within for years to come. I held no such belief. There were no boots laced up, nor goodbyes said, duffle bag in hand.
Standing before family and friends, I dressed in my finest. I professed the best of intentions — love, loyalty, and devotion, and served it up buffet-style with plates packed full of pasta and haphazardly cut slices of cake.
A dream turned vivid nightmare haunts me still.
The profound experience of war is worth sharing — stories of life and death. Waiting with bated breath, harrowing tales recounted. Invisible scars remain, deeply ingrained, torturing storytellers, but overlooked by listeners.
It’s much harder to sit down and give an account of hostilities on the home front. Collectively, we shy away from narratives of abuse, dismissing them entirely, or improperly discounting them as implausible.
My untold stories, quite unbelievable, depict a battle for my own significance.
Escape from domestic violence took years, but it isn’t a victory memorialized by tickertape parade. There was no hero’s welcome home, nor flags fluttering majestically. Guilt and shame remain strewn about freely. Chatter, still fraught with gossip and speculation.
Hopes and dreams were lost among crudely packed boxes marking the surrender.
