I Met Evil When I Was Only A Child

I met evil when I was only a child.

It stepped onto my doorstep in late February.

Evil drove as we spent consecutive hours, days, weeks, months in hospital beds and folding chairs

the scent of the linoleum floor and sterilized air permanently perfumed our skin and stained our memories.

Evil watched as the nurses pitied us, the young children spending the night watching their mother slowly disintegrate and reruns of 90’s sitcoms

so they brought us ice cream and learned our names in attempt to make us feel at home.

Hospitals should never feel like home.

Evil smirked as the walls closed in and our family slowly fell apart,

thread by thread

until each of our seams had burst

and we were left a mess of cotton on cold tile.

Evil laughed as the grief ate us alive, one by one.

My father first

then my sisters

and somewhere along the timeline,

me.

We were forced to watch one another decompose without anything to be done

and there is nothing more agonizing than watching those you love suffer while being rendered entirely helpless.

Evil stepped back but still lingers,

dancing in the shaded corners of every room.

It sometime greets me in crowded hallways or in the form of an almost forgotten laugh.

I have tried and tried and tried to cleanse myself of it

but once Evil finds it’s way into your life, it leeches on and doesn’t let go

no matter how hard you wash it away.

 

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