“War” by Michelle Ayon Navajas

(… based on a true story)

Ehsan had to endure his father's outrage whenever he came home drunk. He'd beat him so hard he could barely walk the next day. Worst, he'd always miss school because of this.
 
His father is an excellent provider. He sent them to an outstanding school and provided them with the best house, clothes, and anything a young child would want.
 
He is the best father, except when he is drunk.
 
Drinking has always been an issue for so long. In fact, Ehsan's mother attempted many times to convince his father to undergo therapy or check-in in at a rehabilitation facility. Despite all the efforts, Ehsan's father remained blind to the fact that he had an alcohol addiction.
 
It wasn't the beating that hurt Ehsan the most. It was the fact that his mother remained silent about it.  
 
Martyrdom, that's what anyone called it.
 
One afternoon, Ehsan arrived home from school hungry. He went straight to the kitchen, looking for something to eat. Instead of finding food, he found his mother drenched with her own blood, helpless on the floor.
 
The next thing he knew, he was seated beside her mother in a hospital bed. Ehsan's mother convinced him to forgive his father, for he was unaware of what he was doing. "He was terribly drunk when he beat me," she said.
 
Ehsan's father arrived with roses and chocolates in his hand. "A piece offering, obviously," Ehsan whispered. But what was also evident was that her mother never filed a police report nor put his father behind bars for what he did to her.
 
Ehsan had enough.
 
At twelve years old, Ehsan realized that no amount of maternal love could save him from his father's outrage.
 
Ehsan decided to live with his maternal grandparents. It wasn't easy, as his parents fought in court to have his custody. But with his grandparents' help, Ehsan could live a peaceful life with them.
 
Ehsan is now a father himself too. He vowed never to lay his hands on his children or wife, no matter what and regardless of.
 
Some people would say that children bear the consequences of their parents' actions. Those people would be wrong. Children are the consequences of their parents' actions. Everything they become is a direct result of everything their parents have done.
 
Ehsan had both of his parents growing up. This wasn't necessarily a good thing.
 
From one of them, Ehsan learned cruelty. From the other, martyrdom. Watching them together taught him from a very young age that sometimes tearing a family apart is the only way to save the people in it. That, even so, there are people who would rather suffer every day than leave behind their children to break all alone.
 
And that there were children who, no matter how much pain they received in the past, managed to teach themselves to never give the same pain back to its source.
 
The last one Ehsan learned from himself.
 

War
 
you're raging a war
of which
origin,
you can
barely tell
at all the day
it has begun
your battlefield
is a place called "home"
and your fiercest enemy
is a man named "dad"
 
Copyright © 2023 Michelle Ayon Navajas
All Rights Reserved

Michelle Ayon Navajas, a former college professor who taught literature, speech and oral communication, creative writing, drama, and theatre arts, has authored eight books, which can be found on her author page on Amazon. She is also a published author at Spillwords NYC, where several of her poems have been nominated as publications of the month. Her poem, «Holding Hands,» became Spillwords’ Publication of the Year Nominee for 2021. She is also published widely in international literary magazines and journals and is a monthly contributor to MasticadoresUSA. You can follow Michelle on WordPress, and on Instagram and Facebook @poetrybymich.

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Editor: Barbara Harris Leonhard 

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