WAR Poem: WAR & PEACE, by Kimberly Wilder

My earliest memory was encoded as a war zone.
Desperate screams to rescue my father from drowning
while fleeing on foot from our would-be captors.

Forced to urinate on graveyard headstones
before finding safety amongst the towering trees.
Terrified into silence as enemy choppers circled above.

We had just buried my maternal grandfather the day before.
The very next day my mother would be gone for at least 72-hours.
This is where my seven-year-old brain stopped remembering.

We never talked about what happened the day after
our papa died or the fact that almost every woman
in my family had been sexually abused.

So, the war zone of my childhood continued.
My daily alarm clock became my father
verbally abusing my mother.

My adolescence was about helping raise my
sisters’ children, who as young, single mothers
needed our mom, but mom’s depression needed me.

My battle cry became a mission to break the cycle
for myself, for my future family, for others.
I thought I had finally escaped the frontline,

but the enemy eventually found its way
to my perfectly curated front door
and didn’t bother to knock.

They barreled in with explosives
and my world crumbled like papier-mâché
left exposed in the middle of a storm.

Those sisters whose children I helped raise
sided with the enemy and said I should probably
disappear for at least 72-hours like our mother.

The father who verbally abused my mother,
publicly told strangers of my demise
while not even so much as asking if I was ok.

I realized I have been a warrior my entire life
and I am exhausted, no longer willing to sacrifice
my peace for those who would discard me.

The only peace I have ever really known
is that false sense of it offered by religion
with quid pro quo like prerequisites.

I now recognize
war and peace
require different attire.

I hereby relinquish my battle armor for peacetime garments
even if I am resigned to live my remaining years
behind the protective walls of an impenetrable fort.