FROM KIMBARKAVE
Even as a young boy I always knew things where not right at home. It wasn’t till years later I would learn just how wrong. My parents never seemed to ever get along, and there was always turmoil in the house. My parents were always arguing about something and dishes were flying around the kitchen or us children were getting woke up at all hours of the night with arguing between the two of them. As time went on things between my parents only got worse and the arguing and the relationship between parents and their children would only get more dysfunctional and bizarre to say the least. One of the very first things I want to say is that in no way do I want anyone to feel sorry for me. I do not want that, I am writing this because I do not want anyone to waste even one second of their life in the past. You cannot change it. You cannot re live it and you will just be stuck in life and be unable to move forward.
As I am reminded of my childhood it always brings back a mixture of emotions. frightened, feelings of loneliness and confusion are no way to grow up. I often felt more like a parent than my own parents. The hard part for me was always the feeling I was paying for my parent’s anger and unhappiness from their own lives and the unhappiness of their marriage. My father always seemed to be angry and took it out various ways on not only his wife, but his children. I don’t know why he seemed to hate all of us and why he ever wanted to be married or have children. I refer to most of my life with my family as” the show”. All of us, outside the house would have to put on our happy and loving family faces whenever we were in front of anyone but behind closed doors it was exactly the opposite. When anyone ever said in front of me “ Oh what a beautiful family you are “ I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs “ If you think were so freekin great you should come live with us, see how you like getting the crap kicked out of you. Being hit, kicked, slapped, thrown down stairs, having clothes ripped off of me, de graded, called every name you can think of, having my bicycle run over by my father because I left it in the driveway, getting a spanking or yelled at or my bed turned over because I was sick and coughing through the night and making noise, getting left at a restaurant on vacation because I didn’t eat fast enough,( Yes you read that right, I actually got left in the middle of Nebraska at a restaurant because I didn’t eat fast enough and while I was in the bathroom my father had everyone get in the car and drove off and left me .) having to walk on egg shells because at any moment I was afraid total chaos would erupt. I know now why years later why I act and do things that I do that make no sense to anyone else but I think it is normal.
I took the abuse till I couldn’t take it anymore and at the age of thirteen I decided to run away. Poor choice as it was I picked of all months January to take the clothes on my back and an Army jacket and crawl out of my window and leave. If I could have waited longer I would have been better off in July, at least it would have been warmer. But as it was it was late in the night and temperatures were below zero. I had no money I had no food but it didn’t matter, I was gone and didn’t look back. It hurt to walk because earlier that night I had one of the worst beatings in my life. One of the ways my father use to discipline me is by having me take off all of my clothes and getting over his legs and he would give me hell with a belt.( That is really sick when I think about it, having a thirteen year old boy get naked and get over his knees. It always made me feel strange when that happened.) The welts on my legs and butt would sting for days, but the names and downgrading would last a lifetime. At times I know he got satisfaction from bringing pain to me. You could see it in his eyes, his eyes were at times black. Almost like you could put your hand in his eyes and never touch the back of his head
CRITIQUE
Yeah, your writing suffers horribly from empty verbs and vagueness. Read what happens to your first paragraph when I cut the words by 30%, chop it into two paragraphs, use good, strong, simple past tense verbs, and apply an apt metaphor:
Even as a young boy, I knew things were wrong at home, but it was years before I learned just how wrong. My parents warred constantly on the battlefield at 123 Maple Street. Words whizzed like laser-guided missiles and dishes flew like grenades. Combat awakened me and my siblings at all hours of the night. Things only worsened with time. My father became like some sadistic commandant, and we kids behaved more like shell-shocked survivors in a concentration camp than a family.
I don’t write this story to gain sympathy. I write it to prevent anyone reading this from wasting even one second of their life in the past. You cannot change it. You cannot relive it. Live now and move forward.
I think you have a good story to tell. Tell it with good writing, or get someone else to write it well.