Living Lie

Living Lie

Alone, eight years old.
listening quietly to the rages of his parents
Their voices resounding
off the walls like the yellow ball he smashes
against the play structure at school.
He is a symbol of their love
for each other,
he tells himself,
though he can barely hear his thoughts
above them
in the other room.
He represents their devotion, their caring,
their understanding; the reason they stay together.
Doubts play
through his head, like so many seagulls
dancing in the wind.
Pirouetting around the gusts of justification.
The seagulls...
They swoop through his mind.
Leaving splotches in their wake
in their expected manner.
His mind wanders as he tunes out the tirade,
again,
he thinks of happy times.
Of times when the fighting stopped.
Or even times when they didn't get to yelling.
It was getting worse.
Now, at time, they would start
yelling at him,
as if they had not met their quota,
and he was their only remaining outlet.
They had stopped,
as they always did,
eventually,
outside of his notice.
One leaves,
one stays
and cries.
Doesn't matter which.
Their symbol sits quietly,
waiting for the next day,
of being.