1999

My dad holds onto my knees as my small hands grip the sides of his baseball

cap. In my imagination, I pretend that I am steering us,

as we weave through a sea of blue and white jerseys.

Wrigley is packed as always, and

and together we get to experience the world at six foot, four.

I don’t particularly love the games, but I always enjoy the commute.

***

2011

Storming into my room, he yells, “What are you doing?”

“Get up!”

It’s Saturday, and I lay depressed in bed unable to move.

I’m unsure if it’s humanly possible to lift myself up;

but before I have the chance to explore the possibility for myself,

his hands are already wrapped around my shoulders.

His rage hurls towards me,

and he begins

shaking me up and

down.

Sandwiched between his body and my mattress, I brace the best I can.

My eyes desperately scan his face in search of a glimmer of my father.

“Dad? What are you doing?”

I plea with a man who pretends to no longer know me.

Instead, he makes orders.

“Stop crying, get up!”

My body continues to be overtaken by his unprocessed pain,

and I beg him to stop to no avail.

My mom always joked that men in our family have selective hearing.

I guess she was right about some things. Eventually I hear her footsteps and

voice from a distance,

she calls him by his name.

“Peter!”

My felt sense is gone by the time he releases my body. He flees,

and she calculates whether or not to stay with me

or to follow him.

She trails quickly behind, and I am free to cry again in the safety of

aloneness.

Tears no longer come, but

lifelessness begins to fills the space between my silenced grief

and the body I’m left with.

She returns to my room later to console me.

I tell her that he abused me. She assures me,

“that didn’t happen.”

***

2015

“Yang,

just punch me.

I think that will help me cry.”

“Annie, what the fuck? I’m not going to punch you.”