Born From The Wreckage

-Born From The Wreckage-
by
Keaton Foster



Her womb
An abused playground
Of flesh and sin
I was one of many
Too damn many
I all but fell out
Maybe I landed on the floor
Maybe I hit my head
Maybe that would explain it
But I doubt it
I know what happened next
What came after birth
Because I lived it
Every god awful second
I was born from the wreckage
Of two separate lives
One loose mother
One irresponsible father
I am one of eight
The last to be exact
One through seven are fine
And then there is me
A crazy as batshit lunatic
At least that is what I was told
And whenever I disagreed
I was often ordered
Son, take two of these a day
One in the morning
And one at night
One for breakfast
The other for dinner
One to curb your illusions
The other to dull your senses
With them life has been impossible
Without them life would be
Well I don’t know
Nor would I really want to
I am comfortable within such
Chemical intoxication
And I’ll leave it at that
One day when I was twelve
Long after my family imploded
Long after everyone had
Moved on to better pastures
I sat at a table with a revolver
One stolen from the keeper
Of the orphanage
Where I had been placed
Left to rot at an age
Where I was too old to be wanted
And too young to survive on my own
I placed one round in the cylinder
And spun it around
When it stopped on its own accord
I put it to my head and squeezed
There was nothing but a click
I did the same thing five more times
Each time there was just a click
The gun could hold six bullets
But oddly I only had five
So I stopped and from that day on
I was sure that I
A man born from the wreckage
Was meant to be
Meant to serve a purpose
One beyond the abuse I was dealt
One beyond the hell I had known
I never saw my mother
My father
Or my seven brothers and sisters again
Are they all still alive
Are they all dead
Do they care who I am
Have they ever
I’m sure that I know the answer
And I’m sure that I don’t care
I was born from the wreckage
But I now understand
More than any time before
That I don’t have to live with it
There can be more
There has to be
Back when I was twelve
Back when I had that gun
Placed firmly against my head
Squeezing five times instead of six
I understood that if I survived
What I was sure was my fate
Then there could be another
One much closer to this…





Born From The Wreckage
Written by Keaton Foster Copyright © 2013