The Mirror In My Palms

Introducing:  The Mirror In My Palms - from the poetry collection of The Things That Ail Me (Book 2  - 5226):

The Mirror in My Palms - 50

Home. I am heading home. A comfortable coach — 2 hours 23 minutes from now, I will be there. I search for my reflection in the window, but I cannot see it — cannot see myself. I stare at my palms for a few minutes and there it is — my reflection. I see myself for the first time in 25 years.

My past bleeds into my present; distress is my only companion.

These are my hands, but not as I remember them. Coarse. Rough. Aged. Fingers stiff, veins like twisted roads.

I look out the window, hoping for a glimpse of my future, but there is nothing — only the wind whipping past. The rhythm of the road, the engine’s hum, the vibration beneath my seat — all of it pulls me backward.

“These are not my hands,” I whisper. I drop my face into my palms and weep, quietly, feeling the ridges of my skin press against my cheeks.

Twenty-five years ago, I made this same journey in different transport. It was not comfortable. I was chained to metal hooks on the floor of the van, locked in with only a small barbed window for air.

I am on the coach, yet I am back in the van. I smell sweat, thick and metallic. I taste my own fear. My chest tightens. Then I hear him, as if he is beside me — the guard, screaming.

“You — you with the fancy shoes!” I look up, and he spits outside the barbed window; some of it lands on my shoe, sticky, warm.
“Welcome to paradise, you privileged bastard,” he laughs, and I feel the echo of his voice scrape my ribs.

I still see his mouth — gaping, fewer teeth than he should have had. What happened to him? I panic, my heart racing, my palms sweating, trembling. Never mind him — what will happen to me? Where are they taking us?

There are five of us in the van. I study their faces, recognise the terror — my own terror. My hands then: soft, youthful.
“I am only nineteen.”

The others look at me. I must have said it out loud. I clasp my palms, shake my feet. I am anxious. They cannot do this to me. I am innocent.

The coach jolts as if it hits a pothole. I scream, clutching my chest. My heart pounds, aches. I have felt this before — every day for twenty-five years. Why now? I am free. I have done my time. I am going home. Yet here I am, back in that dark place.

Questions, no answers. No respite. I rock back and forth, breathing hard, eyes closed. The vibration beneath me shakes the memory loose. I feel sweat on my back, the coach seat against my thighs, the smell of diesel mixing with fear.

“Sir, are you alright?”

I look at him. He is a boy — ten, maybe twelve. I was a boy once. He stares at me, wide-eyed. I must have frightened him. His mother pulls him closer, frowning. They both look ahead.

Are they afraid of me? I am afraid too — afraid of being here, afraid of going home. What will they think of me? Will anyone believe me? My chest tightens; I fight for breath.

“Pull yourself together.”

The voice. The one that has kept me company all these years. My only solace. My unwanted companion. Distress whispers in the dark, as it always has, tugging, pressing, never letting go.

It’s you. You stayed with me. Tell me what to do now. Tell me how I will face Mother.

But I am speaking again. Out loud. “Shut up. Leave me alone. Help!”

The boy and his mother move seats immediately.

“Get out — out now! You’re frightening my passengers! Take your bags. You can walk the rest of the way.”

The driver’s eyes bulge with anger. Diesel fills my nostrils as the coach speeds away.

I know anger. I lived with it for twenty-five years. Lived among angry men. I am angry too. I can fight. But not today.

I must hold it together. Mother will be waiting.

I push him out of my mind. The effort triggers me, and I am back in the van.

Why am I here again? My heart thuds. I look up and see I am almost home — yet I am nineteen.

The guard barks:
“Alright, ladies, out you get. Come see your new home.”

He surveys us. “Well, well, well. What have we here!”

I keep my head down but still glance up. Men everywhere. Men in uniform. Men bare-chested in trousers.

This cannot be. I cannot be here.

We walk the corridor — long, clean, reeking of chemicals. My head pounds. I taste fear. My hands shake.

“I didn’t do this.”

“Save it for the jury,” the toothless guard sneers.

Did I say that out loud? I wish I hadn’t. Why is he still here?

Help me. Someone. Please. I am just a boy.

I scream silently: Let me out.

But there is no one. Only this road. I was kicked out. Flashbacks — vivid, relentless. The sound of boots, the scraping metal, the laughter of men — it all loops, all blends, all follows me.

Ahead, the road stretches straight. The sun warms my forehead. Sweat beads. I push up my sleeves.

Scars cut across my skin — failed attempts, mine and others’. All one and the same.

I could have ended it. I did not. I am still here — testament to my own suffering. Witness to twenty-five years of trauma, with distress still walking beside me, pressing, tugging, reminding.

I approach my home. Stop. Take it in.

Memory floods me. The truth.

My Jeep. New. Friends with me. We were sober. Happy. Blessed. Loved.

Beeping interrupts.

Damn. I am standing in the road. Again, in the middle of trauma.

“Straight line, now! Walk straight or you’re in the hole for a week.”

The hole. Isolation. Guards laughing, tormenting.

I fall in line, domino-like — though miles away, twenty-five years later.

“Be a man. Grow up.”

That voice again — menacing, distinct. It tortures me. Still, I walk towards it, one foot before the other.

“Mother,” I weep.

She embraces me. Her smell, unchanged. Her love, unchanged.

“My son, you are home.”

My tears soak her bosom. I cannot stop.