Does God Forgive Me?

My brother keeps a fist to his mouth at night to keep his cries from being heard while he is asleep. He still has the nightmares, though he will not admit it. He tells me without using words. I am not like him. I am a child and yet not a child, violated and changed by what has passed; I wear the pleated skirt and smile of docility, but I keep a fire stoked high and hot within. I see that which is behind us as through fractal glass, and while I can obscure it from his view, I cannot deny its heavy presence in my own.

Hostility.

Anger.

Bruising.

Shouts.

Violence.

Swearing.

Hating.

Seething.

Anger.

Bleeding.

Clawing.

Scars.

I see as though down a long hallway, the light pulsing at its end, behind a door, edges lined with red. I will capture, I will slay. I will stow it inside the fortress of my heart, those carnation-pink patched-plaster chambers. I coloured those walls myself. No sword, no fist, no fire breath can breach them. I swear my life. I swear my brother’s life. They do not have to know. They will never think to ask.

There is someone coming. A ...