The Storm Within – Toby Ameson
Twelve years old, and I was the one with a calm voice,
and steady hands, uplifting everyone I could reach,
for I understood suffering is always at the core.
Old soul, they called me, and wise beyond my years,
when I had the balm they demanded for the burns
of harsh living, of dark times like old, rotting boards
covered over with fresh carpet to sell the house,
when I knew the tangle of their Gordian knot
better than they did, and could cut to the heart
and free them with a handful of words.
But too sensitive, they decided, when my bleeding heart
was given also in inconvenient places—a spider in a cup,
rescued with trembling and tears from boys with matches,
or shocked expressions and barked protest in lieu of a jester’s laugh
when the joke was too cruel to be funny,
or to the enemy and the friend equally, because both
are alive and hurting, and I know I can help.
I don’t care who is right when it’s more important
to stop the bleeding. We’ll sort it out later.
Torn souls no different than torn flesh in triage tents,
sorted by who will do the most harm in the long run
if the psychic wounds are left unattended now.
It should never have been my job, my turn,
to control the tides of the bleeding minds,
my responsibilities piled up so high it snapped the legs
right out from under me and my life collapsed.
It was the work of somewhere between two and five
adults—negotiating the bosses, the mortgage, the marriage,
the parenting, the intergenerational woes in the rungs
higher on the family ladder, never mind my own troubles—
that landed in my lap. I had answers, and thank God I did,
because our lives would have gone out from under us
a lot sooner if it hadn’t been for my steady voice
and calm hands stemming the hemorrhagic flow.
But if the adults couldn’t handle it,
it should never have come to rest
on the shoulders of a child.
I learned very quickly. The bad things, too.
Like how to take lashes into my own back
to prevent the whipping of others.
How to strive with bleeding feet toward a goal post
that would immediately be moved out farther
because I approached with the audacity
of reaching the unreachable, the unattainable ideal.
How to ignore pain of all kinds and levels
until I couldn’t hear it killing me anymore.
But then the price of my sacrifices began to show up
as missed classes and brain fog and hospital bills,
and my brilliance was forever dulled, burned out
before it was ever even truly my own.
Then they said I was stupid for pushing so hard,
stupid for ignoring the pain, stupid for taking on too much,
stupid for giving up, stupid for getting up and trying again,
and everything I did was stupid
because that was an easier pill to swallow
than the gaping truth under the rotting floor boards.
I broke myself to save them, out of love and necessity,
and over and over and over and over and over,
and when I was no longer sound enough to stand,
they said I was stupid for cracking my own foundation.
If I had known that I was sacrificing my health,
my freedom, my potential, my autonomy,
my brilliance and my resilience and my joy
for all the years of the rest of my life,
without so much as a thank you or I’m sorry,
and with a heaping serving of scorn and shame,
I would have screwed them over instead.
I dream about time travel so I can let them reap
what they would have sown without my intervention,
so I could have had the strength to finally escape
instead of tripping on the threshold of adulthood
and returning crippled to the festering bed of family dysfunctions.
I never reached adulthood, and the loss is my private black hole.
I grew up too fast. The vacuum of innocence left storms within me.
On the event horizon, I write to fill the void.
Bio: Toby Ameson (they/them) is a queer, disabled writer living in Los Angeles. They have been published in International Human Rights Arts Festival Publishes. They love adorkable romance fluff and dark fantasy, sometimes mixed together. In their free time they love spending time nurturing their kid, their soulmate, their animals, and stories that create change and inspire hope.
