No one really knows how my grandfathers fought.
They only know the trophies, the medals in boxes, the folded flags, the framed pictures where everyone pretends the story ended in black-and-white.
They don’t know that one of my grandfathers came home and married a bottle instead.
That the war kept pouring itself into his glass, over and over, until it swallowed the man everyone said was a hero.
They don’t know my other grandfather woke up screaming.
That his dreams were minefields.
That his heart tried to escape his chest more than once, that the war kept chasing him into heart attacks and night terrors, long after the world said it was “over.”
The war did not stop when they came home.
It just changed addresses.
It moved into our family, into our habits, into the way love sounded like slammed doors and heavy footsteps.
It taught everyone to flinch first and ask questions later.
And now strangers look at me like I owe them something.
Like I owe them a smile.
Like I owe them softness and polite eye contact.
Like I owe them a calmer, quieter version of myself because “people have had it worse.”
They don’t see that I’m walking around with generations of tremors in my veins.
They don’t see that my body learned the language of danger before it learned the language of rest.
They don’t see that every boundary I set is me choosing to end a war I didn’t start.
They look at me like I owe them respect.
Like I owe them comfort.
Like I owe them an easy, undamaged girl who says “thank you” for the bare minimum.
No.
YOU OWE ME.
You owe me the safety my grandfathers never had.
You owe me honesty about what war really did to them, instead of pretty lies and patriotic slogans.
You owe me gentleness after generations of clenched fists and shaking hands.
You owe me the space to exist without being told to smile through the fallout.
My grandfathers fought a war that tore their minds and hearts apart.
I’m fighting the invisible one they left behind, the one that lives in silence, addiction, night terrors, and tight chests.
I don’t owe you my smile.
I don’t owe you my silence.
If anything, after everything I’ve inherited and survived
YOU OWE ME.