Sleep

He leaves his house dishevelled.  His sister didn't sleep all night again because of her... sadness.  He stayed up listening to her crying.  Knowing that he couldn't make her stop.
He goes to school, the teachers speaking are background noise.  They ask him a question, remark about how he should get his act together.
He wonders if his sister got out of bed this morning.
Did he see her in the kitchen?
Is she eating?
No, no.  He doesn't think so.
She's been too frail.
And cries.  She cries so much.
The teacher yells at him.
His tired eyes blink.
He doesn't have energy to speak.
His tired eyes blink.
He slowly falls asleep. He can sleep here.

She lays in bed shivering.
There aren't enough blankets to warm her up.
Her puffy cheeks are squished between several pillows and layers of sheets.
But she's still freezing.
Her alarm is still going off, but she doesn't have the strength to raise her arm and turn it off.
Why does she still set her alarm?  She knows she wont respond to it.
Her stomach growls.  When did she last eat?
She can't remember.  Her memory is failing.
She starts crying.  She doesn't like not being able to remember things.
She can't even remember her brother's face.
The last time she really saw him, he was starting to have a shadow of stubble.
She thinks.
Did he have stubble?
Her tiredness pulls her under.
Her breathing slows.

His classes go by slowly.  A few of his friends knock his shoulder, call out and joke around beside him.
He feels his fatigue lift a bit.
He eats a sandwich he bought with his change.
He gets to joke and smile with his friends.
They ask about his day and make fun of their teachers.
He thinks about how they're people too.
He didn't like mocking teachers.
A teacher walked by and calls him aside.
The teacher asks what's going on with him.
The teacher says that his grades are plummeting.
He can't tell his teacher it's because he can't do his homework.
Because he has to go straight home.
If he stays at school to do it, his sister is alone.
But when he goes home, he has to clean the entire house.
When he goes home he has to make dinner and try to feed his sister.
Sometimes she eats.
But then she goes to the bathroom.
And sleeps.
Then she will wake up and cry.
He blinks at his teacher and apologizes.
He says that he just has more important things to do.
His teacher takes it as he's lazy and doesn't want an education.
He just wants his sister to be here to have a chance at an education.
He walks away from his teacher.

Her breathing stops.

He walks home slowly.
His limbs feel heavy.
He wonders if he would have time to take a nap on the couch.
As he gets to the front door, there's an energy shift.
Suddenly he is awake and alert.
His parents aren't home.
He takes out his phone and sees that they should've been home already.
He opens the door and sees that everyone's shoes are gone.
Even his sister's.
It's odd to think they all went out.
He goes to the fridge, but freezes.
He should check his sister.
He walks upstairs, and knocks on her door.
"Amalia?"
No answer.
He swears and walks in.
Her room is a mess.
There's a pungent smell.
The bed is empty.
He heads downstairs and opens a can of olives.
He takes out some chips.
Cheese.
He microwaves the nachos.
Just as he sits down he gets a phone call.
It's his dad.
His dad tells him what happened.
His dad says his mother and himself came home.
They checked on his sister.
She was cold.
Asleep.
Shallow breath.
They took her to the hospital.
Her organs have failed.
They're doing surgery.
But she's not healthy.
She isn't okay.
They don't think she will be.
He hangs up.
He pushes away from the nachos.
He's very tired.
He looks at the couch, and slowly, slowly, slowly walks to it.
He sits down, and slides to lay down.
His eyes close.
And he falls asleep.Sleep

To My Father

What an awful person I'm becoming,
I'm terribly sorry.
I guess I'm just in the wrong.
Always stuck between who I am
What I'm feeling
and how people want me to act.
I guess since it seems like I have been doing so well
you have forgotten what has happened
what is happening.
"But you're adult." You say.
"You can't live in college dorms.  Too many awful things happen there."  You contradict yourself with.
"I'm going to get a house with a basement quite for you to live."  You contradict yourself with.
And no matter what I say
Act
Or do
I will never
ever
be
or have enough
to convince you
otherwise.
What a terribly awful person I'm becoming.
I'm stuck
and my heart hurts a lot right now.
And I don't know what to say
because my emotions aren't proper right now
and you get angry with me
and say how I need to act like an adult
because my disrespect
is unacceptable
and I'm stuck
and I don't know what to do
and it's really hard to breathe
and I just need to get away
and you're pulling my by reigns
and choking words down my throat
so quickly that I can't answer
so I stay silent
so you get angrier
so I close my eyes
so you exhale
and everything gets quiet.
And I don't know what to do
what to say
how to think.
And you mutter something that I could only imagine
and you leave.
And I know that you've left a part of me in this room
and you won't take it back
and this will happen again
and again
and again
until you have nothing left of me
and I am nothing
to
you.

To a Friend

The first time I saw my father, I was already a twenty-nine year old man with an ex wife and a daughter.
And hell, let me tell you, that wasn't no walk in the park either.  It wasn't as though I strolled up to him on a sunny spring day saying, "Care for a smoke?  Only the best for my paps."
Oh no.  It was a bloodbath to say the least.

You see, I was adopted at a young fuckin' age.  My mother died at birth, which my paps blamed me for.  Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the guy, but that ain't no reason to shun out your kid like a sack of rotten Chinese food.   Which is what he did.  By the time I was six I was so fuckin' underweight that I literally blew away in the wind.  Literally.  I was out with some crack-birthed neighbour kids, and we was racin' down the block the some fanny guy's rank old yard.  I chugged down that fuckin' hill like an unholy saint in a churchyard and when that wind picked up, fuck I was gone.  They was howlin' though.  Hell, I thought it was hilarious too.
When I was eight though, man was I fucked.  And I knew it toos.  See, my paps was a drinker.  Hard core, always drunken drunk that was so accustomed to bein' drunk that he was always sober.
But that was no ex'use of beatin' a kid.  A blood related one nonetheless.  But that sore fucker did.
There was a night when I came home late-- the streetlights were on.  That was m' curfew.  And I had screwed the fuck up.  I know that.  I triggered him.  Big whoop.
Or at least, I got a big whoop.
He unbuckled his belt, didn't bother spinning me around, and whipped me across my face, neck, shoulders, abdomen and thighs so many times with his fat, jiggly arms that I couldn't see anything but red on me.  I couldn't see anything but red.
That night I bolted to the police station.
I was rushed to the ER of course, he was placed in handcuffs.
The drunken S.O.B wasn't upset though-- the only time he wasn't upset.  He was laughing with anger.
"He's the fucken murd're!  You should've seen m'girl Nancy!  She was a pretty thang 'till he fucken came 'round!"
Nancy was my mother.  I've only seen photos of her, but she was a pretty little thing.  Short brown hair, large blue eyes.  Medium build.  She looked like a pixie.
My adoptive parents were sickly sweet though.  They've course were them gooey type.  Smilin' so big they always looked like them Asians.  Fucken' Asians.  They the type who sang the carols at christmas, and made you wear them stupid ugly fuckers.  Y'know, the sweaters.  Ughk.  Ugly little fuckers.
Anyhow, as I grew up, I became bored with everything.  In fact, by the time I was thirteen I sat in my new paps car with the windows up and engine on.
Of course, I got out before any damage was done.
Shame.
Fucken' shame.
Even as I grew up, I remembered that psycho.  I didn't see no one, because that would've seemed weak to me.  I need to emphasise it was weak to me to tell some'ne that I thought I had PTSD, because I was beaten so often when I showed even the slightest bit of weakness.  It's just how my mind worked.
As the years dragged on, I was constantly bullied at school.  I think I switched schools ev'ry year till highschool.  That's kind of when things slowed.  Because then I found art.  HA.  It sounds dumb of me to say, an' I know I ain't the best speaker, but art held my soul in ways I ain't ever had it held b'fore.  Not the sketchy-type art, with pencil, but metal work and woodwork.  I built everything I could've in those three short years.  And I was fucken' glorious with 'em.
I got so many of them awards that it seemed almost like a chore to go accept 'em.  Which sounds awful high 'n mighty of me, but I ain't tryin' to be.
Anyways, one of those award evenings, pro'ly in year twelve, I met this girl.  It sounds so cheesy when I say this, but when  I saw her it was like all the light focused in on her, and the rest of the gym was dimmed.  She had this short wavy-type bob that framed her face as it seemed to meld into her skin.  It was a light brown.  Then her eyes, oh god.  They were such a pale blue that they looked Gray.  And she wasn't wearin' those tight black skirts like most of 'em other girls neither.  No, she had on an elegant long sleeved dress that looked like the smoke that came out of people's chimneys.
And my god, when she was talkin' to her group of friends, she looked up under those thick light lashed and met my eyes.  In an instant her cheeks grew crimson, and I felt like I won a million bucks.  And then I felt like I gave all of those bucks to support fluffy bunnies who were homeless or some shit.  I felt giddy.
Of course I didn't have the confidence to speak to her, so we just kind of shared glances to each other now and 'gain.  It was like we already knew each other.
Next day at school she walked up to me.  She said she was Lucy and that she loved my pieces I displayed the night b'fore.
And I never asked her out, we just kind of were together.
That may be the mistake we made, now that I think about it.  I'd see her talkin' to some guy and I'd think she didn't like me any more.
But we loved each other.
We got married when we graduated.  We had Lillian when we was a bit older though.  We was twenty-four, twenty-five.  But then Lucy kept gettin' sick.  She had troubled with her white blood cells, so she got sick often and for long periods of time.  But it got to the point where she didn't get better one day.  Well I guess she did, because she wasn't sufferin' no more.  Lily understood right away when I told her mama loved her, but had to be free of her pain.  Lily didn't cry, she kissed my cheek with her plump scarlet lips and said sternly, "Daddy, we need to be happy that she's okay now."
Luckily she learned to speak proper b'fore Lucy passed.  See, she was an English major, and she was not lettin' her baby suffer with the way I speak.  I would smile, thank her, and kiss her.
She was twenty-eight when she died. Our little daughter turning five.
But something was naggin' me.
I would have nightmares about panic fillin' my chest.  Then I'd wake with a sweat drenched bed.  I'd fear for Lily.  I'd run into her room and cradle her into my arms, and I'd fall back asleep in her bed.
I never hit Lily.  If she done somethin' bad like runnin' out into the street full o' cars, I'd get upset.  I'd yell at her to tell her she'd hurt herself if she did that.  But I never hit her.  I guess that's a lie.  Sometimes, like with the car thing, if she kept doin' it, I had to spank her.  No whips, no belts, but I had to get across that it was unsafe.
And I hated myself for that every day after.
I realised that I had to see my pap.  I had to see where he was and know he wasn't comin' for me or Lily.
So I went to him.

I didn't mean to.  I swear to God I didn't mean to.
I found where he lived.  Some place in Oklahoma.  I drove for a few days.  I left Lily with a sitter.
I didn't want her to meet him.  I didn't want him to know she existed.  So I went up to the old, rotting door.  And this stern looking man with white hair and a wrinkled face opened the door.
     "I don't want the fucking paper, get the fuck outta here, boy."  He waved his cane at me, and I ducked out of the way.  Before I meant to I said,
     "Jacob Merth!  I'm Jacob Merth.  Your son."  He froze.  Then a sick grin spread on his lips as he gestured inside, pulling the door open.
     "Ahh.... I've been won'dren when your ass would show up."
     I don't know why I went in.  I shouldn't have.  I know that now.  But, it's too late.
     All the furniture was torn at corners, and seemed clumped in places.  The radio was on, but it was static, and the t.v was also on static.
     He sat me down at the old wooden table and said bluntly, "Come here to apol'gize?"  I felt shocked.  Twenty-three years, and that's what he asks.
     "What.. do you mean?"
     "Apol-o-gize."  His iron stare made me uneasy.  Why did I come here?  "For killin' my wife, and for getting me thrown in jail."
     "I didn't know you went to jail.  I was six and in pain.  I didn't mean to kill mum, she was pregnant and I was being bor---"
     His hands slammed on the table, "YOU KILLED MY FUCKING WIFE!"
     It happened so quickly, he pulled a large silver gun out from under the table, and cocked it back.  Suddenly I was scared for Lily.  Would she be adopted now, too?
     All the air breathed out of the house as we just stared at each other.  And before I decided to, I jumped up and smacked the gun out of his hand.  It went flying under the sofa, but as I lurched at it his cane came flying up and smacked the front of my head.  I hear a crack on my face, and with the blood pouring into my mouth I think he broke my nose.   He leaped onto me, grabbin' at my throat, but I stepped back against the wall, crushing him.  With him loose, I scrambled for th' gun, frantically searchin' under the couch.  My hand fell across the cool metal, and I pulled it out, aimed at him and shot without hesitation.  The ringing in my ears dazed me, and I found I wasn't holding onto the gun an'more.   I saw a thick red splatter on the wall, and his limp body crumpled by the table.
     I was breathing quite shallow, and suddenly it felt like I wasn't gettin' no air, which made me panic.  I got on my knees and felt vomit pour out of my mouth, onto his worn wooden floor.  The realization that Lily wasn't going to have a father any more hurt more than an'thin' I could imagine.  It hurt more than losin' Lucy.  But I was going to jail.  I couldn't cover this up, go home an' act like nothin' was wrong no more, because ev'ry thin' was wrong now.  My conscious was wrong now.
     I found the gun a few feet away, I think I tossed it out of my hands, makin' it seem like I ain't the one who shot him.  But it was me.
     I lifted the gun and opened my blood filled mouth, placing the hot end in between my teeth.  I love you, Lucy, Lily.  Please forgi------------------

My Love For You

It is the act of not doing to save others happiness
that feels as though you are stabbing your own heart
but instead of falling into your grave
you live through the ever growing anguish you created.
So why, why harm someone you adore so ravenously
when the answer isn't as simple as you care.
It is done because my love for you goes beyond
anything I could possible imagine.
My love for you and your joy is something
that I don't even manifest for myself
because my love for you is indescribable.
Even if it seems as though I'm hurting you,
oh sweet,
If I act on anything I will bring sorrow to your heart
and you will live through it
as I live through my knife wound
and that,
is something I can not allow happen to you.
I apologise in ways you don't see
each apology runs down my face
and all I can do is let the dampness become
absorbed into my sleeves
as I wipe them away.
Because my love for you,
is something I will not let you fret about
I will not allow you to be desolate
in my hands
so I will not hold you
so you will be free.