The Strength of Walls

My son. Just shy of ten. Pushing maybe 6 inches away from my height with all the strength and frontal lobe of a child forty years younger…just looked me in the eye and decided… he would win. If he had to. On brut strength.

He pushed me once. Then twice. Then hard until I hit a wall in the bathroom.

It’s my fault. And not. It’s a mix.

The torment of words and screams were driving me crazy. He just kept sounding out his anger and anguish… so fucking loud like an echo chamber in that tub.

Hating that soap was in his eye. Hating the temperature. Hating that he even had to take a shower. Hating everything in that moment in time. Hating me. He screamed he hated me over and over and over again. And then he screamed he hated me again.

He’s almost ten.

And there he just was. Being ten. This kid just expressing his voice in disgust like we all sometimes need. Oh, to be that free to scream like children know to. To laugh so loudly. To dance in the streets. To be defiant. To be obnoxious. To be awfully wonderful. To just express everything. To say it all.

But I forgot.

So instead… it became rules and obedience and personal pains. Wounds and wishes that it wasn’t that way.