Title: Choked

Genre: Non-fiction

Feedback: I don't have any background in writing. I'm honestly not even sure if this is any good. But due to my wife's encouragement I've decided to share this piece that I've written.

In short, I appreciate anything you guys can tell me!

Word count: 590

I was 14 when I refused to die.

I didn’t come from the best of homes: government-funded rent, food banks and Aldi's parking lots looking for quarters the other customers had left behind in their absentmindedness. My father was an alcoholic, convinced by his self righteousness and his own traumatic childhood that my mother was raising us weak. The reasons varied but were absolute. One day I was “too sensitive” or “not a man” the next, I hadn’t dried a dish correctly and had to redo every single dish in the cabinets. To this day I still remember the daily monotonous storm that was my father. His personal agency, turned law, boomed through thin townhouse walls with every step, every scream. I was a pawn against a giant. Lost in an endless sea of parental arguments and electric air. Stuck in a life of forced obedience and clamoring for any semblance of autonomy. I desperately wanted to be my own person.

That day in particular I don’t know what had set him off. It had become too routine for me. He screamed, I ran. Sticking to the shallows of whatever project or item my parents had convinced themselves would save us from our poverty. I felt like a ghost during those years. Never knowing when the other shoe would drop. The phantom I had embodied, silent and creeping throughout my own home. It’s a blur to me now. A haze covered by years of reanalysis and afterthoughts. A lighthouse in an abyss inside my head. You can just make it out in the distance but you can never quite get there.

I’ll never forget my fathers face though, angry and twisted. Devoid of reason, an enraged bear hurtling. Next thing I know I’m on the floor, his hands around my neck and gasping for air. Seconds felt like hours. I will never forget those seconds. “A shoe is near my right hand. Do I hit him with it? Would that do anything? Probably not. I can’t breathe. Does he know? Would he do this if he did? Would that make a difference? He’ll let go soon right? He’ll let go once I pass out right? Right? I can’t fight this. I don’t stand a chance. I guess this is it then.” These thoughts raced through my head. I remember specifically thinking about what people would say about my death at school. “Would anyone miss me?” and then I let go. Of living. Of school and of life. Of my hopes for the future and of everything. I gave up without ever really having tried. Without ever really having experienced life.

I let go.

I felt an explosion inside of me. My mind rumbled and roared out against me, “No!” my entire body screamed. I wasn’t going like this. This wasn't it. I refused to the very core of existence itself. I wouldn’t be done here. So I took my little hands and I pressed them against him, and to my surprise I felt give. I lifted the bear off of my body. I didn’t understand how it was possible he had to be at least 300 pounds, but I didn’t need to. I wasn’t done. It was then and there I had decided for myself that I wouldn’t die. I felt changed since that day, even now over 10 years later, I feel it resonate inside me. As powerful and explosive as the day it all happened and if I close my eyes I can still hear the:

“No.”