I Remember

I remember…

Sunlit days and childish laughter. Roaring campfires and dark night skies. Those ancient days when joy was everything, and our pain was inconsequential. Even when the rain fell, we always knew the sun would come after. 

I remember…

The pull of a string, and the thunk of an arrow, targets riddled with holes. It was all a game then, and all I knew was the satisfying feeling of nailing that bullseye. I became a hunter, learning to gut and to butcher. The blood didn’t bother me then, for it wasn’t human.

I remember…

Screams of pain and the roar of warfare. My arrows struck down my enemies, and my tears fell with them. My sword butchered men and women alike. I lost everything I thought I wanted to that bloodlust. And those I killed… their eyes, faceless and shadowed in my dreams, still watch me, waiting for me to die, waiting so they can torture my worthless soul. 

I remember…

Blood soaked hands, red I could never scrub off, ghosts I couldn’t shake, words I could never erase. Coward. Traitor. Murderer. Fear nips at my heels, and despair strangles me with her hands. The darkness around me moves and cuts off my air. I breathe nothing but the stench of my own terror-filled sweat.

I remember…

Bitter victory and pained joy. In reality, the war, the killing, stopped. In my head it never did. I was lost in the maze of my own consciousness, and siren songs led me astray, forcing me to watch everything I loved die over and over again.

I remember…

Nights I would wake up screaming, days where I couldn’t seem to wake up. My nightmares had crossed to the realm of reality once, and I couldn’t make them go back. Truth mixed with lies, and I no longer can tell the difference. My fantasies had taken corporeal form, and I am powerless before them now.

I remember…

Returning home, begging, pleading, for forgiveness. I found healing in those hallways and safety in those rooms. My physical scars have sealed over, knotted and tight like the bitterness and fear lurking in my stomach. But I can still feel their phantom pains, the cold of metal in my flesh, though there is nothing to remove. Worse, I cannot shake those voices.

Coward

Traitor.

Murderer.

And. I. Can’t. Forget.

I remember…

Stalking you in the midnight halls of our house, stealing like a wisp from shadow to shadow, desperate to stay by you, to be with you. In our play, you were my idol. You were my world. I followed you everywhere, and in those sunlit days, it was as it should be.

I remember…

Watching you with your weapons, struggling to use the bow you shot with ease. My arrows were as lost as my thoughts, straying far from the target I sought. Impossible to train, many said. As did you. But you never minded when I stood by you to help prepare a carcass for the fire. You guided my hand and taught me how to carve it.

I remember…

Standing in the doorway, wondering how I could be so detached. You rode away with others, loud, raucous, unaware of the shadow you left behind. You went to war. To glory, you said. I drifted without you, craving your sparse letters, drinking in your words. I watched your notes spiral from cheerful, to painful, to numb. You became someone I hardly recognized. Someone I missed, but didn’t know.

I remember…

Training hard, trying desperately to become good enough to follow in your steps. Too sickly, they said. Too weak. I would stare down at my blistered, bleeding hands, wondering if your callouses ever cracked, if you had to scrub red from your skin. If it ever stopped hurting.

I remember…

News that the war was over. Victory. The singing in the streets, the happy reunions of some neighbors, the screams and wailing of others. For weeks, I waited faithfully at the gate, staring at a far-off point down the road. Hoping with each figure that passed that you would be the next. I was asleep when you came, curled up against the stone wall in front of our home. You said my name as though it tasted strange on your tongue. And in that moment, I could not remember yours.

I remember…

Nights when I lay in my bed, listening to your screams, wondering how you could be so broken. You shared nothing, told me nothing. I reread your letters, poured through your journal. But you had carefully hidden who you had become. The pain was there, in those pages, but the scars were not. The numbness was there, but not the torment and bitterness.

I remember…

Holding you one day, bewildered that I could be a comfort to you. Your tears stained my tunic, and your fingers grasped at my shoulders, my back, as though trying to hold onto something that was no longer there. You begged for forgiveness in a thousand, broken tones. You spoke names I didn’t know, talked of eyes that watched you. You wanted release. Freedom. Something I didn’t know how to give you.

I remember…

The morning when your eyes were no longer bloodshot. The day when you smiled. It was months before you laughed, before the sun rose on your face. The darkness is still there, the voices still haunt you. You cannot shake them. But the days you take my hand, the days you recognize me, when you speak my name and smile into my eyes, I can see the wounds inside you closing over. I can see the thorns and barriers giving way.

I can see my brother.