By: Joshua Wallen

For six years he waited. His eyes grew dark and heavy; almost as if they were so tired from being worn so thin. In a sense of rationalizing a demeanor, it was now. If ever there was a time to express the pain and the silent screams, it was now. If ever there was going to be a time for an escape it was then, the day she died. My mother.

In the early years he thought nothing of death and almost thought it was some sort of magic trick. When his aunt died years earlier, he wasn’t as numb as he is now. She was his best friend when he needed someone. She gave him everything a nephew could possibly ask for. It was a very solemn day when she passed. Yet that was only the beginning.

Ever since that cold day in January 2003, he made a promise to simply carry on. He was only twelve at the time so thoughts came and went like candy or waffles before he went to school. Days were slow and monotonous. His eyes grew heavier and undoubting. His words became a sword. Doubled edged and bloody. Lies spewed out as if to assume he knew not the truth of death and its severed head. Ever in his mind the cold awakening of sweet slumber. Yet on his soul is a mark to a promise.

Almost 8 years later, six before his mom passed. A sense of dread came over him. Pain ever so thickening and drenched in transparent blood. She became sick, almost deathly. Sorrow filled the three that were left and all in unison became silent. Six years later, His worst fears came true. She now sits atop a wooden dresser ever to silently judge in a purple urn. Love emits from the inanimate cremated remains. Yet anger rages on.

For on the night, the night she passed, one he thought would be there for him chose to be there for himself. Instead the pain grew in silence and he ran outside. Screaming and crying. Begging for life to return to her. She was no more and so was his friendship with his best friend or whoever he was now. What begged his voice to utter those words, I will never know. What ensued shortly after became evident to the fact he was no longer the friend he needed. I realized that in that moment the boy I was became a man.

A fight broke out. Biting and punching. Not your usual high school brawl but something else. Something strange and out of grief and anger. Partially because mother had died and partially because I was hungry and he deserved it. What I felt and what I did were separate. I am he that lost so much. I am he who became a man. I am he who felt his heart being raped and stepped on. What effort lingers after that is more than the pain could allow. Intense pain is a silent reliever. Yet the mind begs for more.

In hiding I suffer the winds of gallant fortune. What angered me became a swift revelation between heartache for her and rage for him. One I could easily cherish and the other I will never forgive. For six years I waited in silence to become something else. Something strange. Something other than the monster I chose to be. What I didn’t realize is that I didn’t choose the monster. The monster chose me. A sick echo within the walls of my plight, I endanger myself and all I am close to. For her passing, it had unleashed a ravenous wolf that has a blood thirst unquenchable. A hunger that can never be fulfilled. A memory never to be forgotten.

What to do now but to wait and sing silently in my own head. A sick cycle for a sick psycho. Humming notes of Strauss and Chopin in my mind. For now it is the only thing I have left. This blanket of darkness and soft cloth now clothe me in a veil. Yet the monster unveils all. In a deep darkened hallway, a trivial and yet simple quote comes to mind. Funny how Alfred Hitchcock had it right the first time. “A mother is a boy’s best friend”…