Terror + Civil War = No Development

9/11 did not start terrorism.

Before the NY tragedy gave global TV screens seizures, terrorism had been inking many history books in blood.

When terrorism begets war, life stops. Fear thwarts development. An entrapping mismatch between your emotional and chronological ages is born.

I was chronologically eight when terrorism ate my country alive.

Memories of besiege

I recall bombs exploding. The onion on my nose amid tear gas. A neighbor agonizing on the floor. The morning a bomb was found in my school.

Slain politicians, artists and journalists. Blown-up banks, theaters and courts. kidnappings. Houses broken into. Wives raped before their husbands.

A five o'clock curfew, to cheat insignificant death, completed the besiege.


Hey kid, stop being a kid!

Barely good at multiplication, our political inclinations were questioned. Mere partisanship rumor attracted trouble. Murder was an option.

Forget summer camp. Buses were stopped, emptied and all passengers shot because parents refused to deny their kids beach time.

No expeditions in a country with surreal history, culture and scenery. No sleepovers. No summer concerts. No youth-forging experiences. No growth.


Young, dumb and full of crumb

I went to the club the first and last time at 16 — the only advantage looking older entailed. I had no idea I was fresh meat amid a wolf pack.

Peerless, I basked in mingling with all these, at last, grownups. While they were getting a close-up preview of their prey, to decide on my price tag.

It wasn't until I caught my then-best friend pocketing money, after promising my body for so and so, that I cut ties with everybody and that milieu.


Bend over or I tell everybody you're gay

Love in all this?

• At 14, I fell hard. Like all firsts, my ribs were wood, his love fire. Five years later, I was sternly told my love wasn't reciprocal, losing custody of my 100 letters.

• At 15, a guy sodomized me bareback in my sleep. I revolted. He slapped me and boarded the only cab available at midnight. I had to walk two hours home.

• At 16, I befriended the only openly gay guy in my uptight school and town; public crucifixion ensued. Besotted with a "straight" guy, I failed high school.

Catching wind of it all, mom sentenced me to 2 years in our Guantanamo home.


P(r)ay the gay away

Classmates were paid to report my every move. People I liked. Air-kissing Judah clones. Kittens exploitative of that one occasion to roar like lions.

Reaching my critical-thinking-challenged mother, rumor was fact.

Her violence was nothing new to this punching bag. But unfair accusations and spine-tingling insults had become too redundant a meal on the menu.

I could hit back, emotionally and physically. My faith says otherwise.


Keep your amenities closer

Privy to mom's dirtiest secrets, a word to my hotblooded, honor-obsessed uncle could destroy her. But why have her killed and he imprisoned?

My only crime was reenact, as a teen, "vices" she'd committed as an adult.

I get she had to keep me on the straight and narrow. Yet pepper spray, public diary readings, police calls and prison threats were unnecessary.


Problems in bulk

Locked in. Attacked. Imploding. I, gradually, lost my zest for life.

My contagious joie de vivre ceased contaminating even me.

My Cortisol skyrocketed. My eyes dimmed. My swimmer's build ballooned. Seeing me on a rare outing, a former crush exclaimed "WTF?!?"

It's times like these you wish earth swallowed you alive.


What now?

Today, I realize I've survived my hardship share. But at what price?

At best, I feel like a fragile kid in an adult world bigger than his body.

All I know is violence hinders your emotional development. War cripples. The depletion of opportunities to shine casts a bleak veil on the future.

It seems to be too late ...