like a flash

i have these snippets of memories. they appear and disappear in an instant. like the flash of an old slr camera. *poof* i can not really make sense of them, as in, i can not string them together with eloquent words to tell a story or depict a picture. my mind, my body, is not ready to do so. to see it all in a full light. so they remain little flashes of images etched in my mind. like the time i did not understand my math so i was hit repeatedly in the head and tossed up the stairs with the words 'idiot' ringing in my ears at the age of 9. or when my father asked me where those marks came from on my back as i bathed one night. the time i stepped between her and my little sister who was being pushed into the dresser only to be screamed at and shoved myself. or the time that same sister called the police because of the fighting in our home. i remember the phone calls to my older sister to come and get me because she 'could not fucking stand the sight of me anymore!'. *poof-poof-poof* i see these flashes and i am grateful in a way that they do not haunt me. that the violence in our relationship is so far removed now that it is hard to believe it was there at all. but i do still have these snippets. like a flash, i see them. and as quickly as they come ... they disappear.
~Whytelash