Care For Me Not, I'll Hurt You Too Much
Neighbors/The River
You’re curious as to what’s happening in this house now situated in front of you. You stare blankly as more lights flip on and on. You saw more shadows passing in front of the cream curtains, there seemed to be more and more of them moving around inside the house. You stare absentmindedly, no longer worried that someone might see you. They were all busy with what they were doing in the house…moving in.
You had to stop and count the houses down, go back and check the street name, before you finally allowed yourself to believe that what you were seeing was real. That and you finally seeing the moving van parked beside a regular sized family vehicle at the end of the driveway. Again, you look over at your house next to it and see that even that looks abandoned. The once well-kept paint was now chipping slowly away and falling into the unmanned flower bed below. The weeds had now over taken it so it looks as if no one ever lived there. The faucet on the side of the house stained the pale beige color to a rusty orange, mixed with an aging brown. The porch used to be painted to the same color of the house, the deck reaching all the way across from one edge of the front of the house to the other. The three steps looked very old and seemed that they might break with any more weight applied to them.
It wasn’t until you compared the two houses—one now filled with life and already looking much more nicer than it had in several years, the other rotting and slowly falling apart along with it’s occupants—that you realized you haven’t actually seen the way your house looked nowadays. You usually tried to come in through the back to get quicker access to the staircase anyway. Even though you walk out of there every day and walk back into it every night, you’ve never actually seen it. You have to admit, it looks decrepit.
You glance back at the house that formerly belonged to your cousin and couldn’t help but delve into the memories that you had of that place. You and your cousin grew up together and knew everything about one another. Well…almost everything as it all turned out.
You remember watching this house as it slowly filled with people until it nearly exploded among itself during the holidays. You, of course, lived next door, but you hardly ever played at your house or even in your own yard. It was always her yard, always her house. You’d play with her in the snow for hours, as the winter crept in earlier than other parts of the country into the Northeast. You’d make snow angels and snow men until your teeth were chattering so loudly the entire room would be able to hear your molars clanking together. Her mother always made hot chocolate afterwards, making the most of all your childhood together. You had a wonderful time, a wonderful life…you had a life.
The events that passed through your minds eye cause a small tear to escape the side of your eye, bringing back the events of earlier that day.
Stop it! You’ve cried enough today. You tell yourself plainly while turning on your heel toward your house, without a backward glance at the smaller version of yourself playing with your older cousin in her snow covered yard.
That’s all they’ll ever be now. Just memories.
-
You reached your room without a fuss. He wasn’t even in the house to begin with. He must have gone out and stayed out. He’s done it before, it’s just very rare. Normally he comes back at exactly the same time every night and lays his “love” forcefully into your sides, creating more bruises that don’t seem to go away, no matter how much you stay away from the house.
It’s better I’m here anyway…Where else could I go? You try to look at everything optimistically now, but when his hand slides sickeningly across your face, making your cheeks burn red and sting, you’d rather be in a cardboard box in a dark alley than there.
You’re just happy that nothing happened tonight. You’ve had enough drama for today, what with the new kid Gerard and the unexpected tears in class.
You change into your nightclothes—black long sleeve shirt with a comic book logo on it with plain, dark blue sweatpants—and sit at the head of your bed while cradling your pillow in your lap. You open your window as far as it will go. Your room had been feeling stuffy with all of your things scattered across the floor in a regularly-teenage, unkempt way. You may not have the life others dream for, but you’re still a teenager.
You smirk to yourself as you fold your arms across the sill of the window, staring into the middle section dividing your house and hers…correction, theirs. Whoever they were. You tongue your lip ring absentmindedly while glancing into the large, empty lot divided by the one way Boyd St. You, him, and your cousin used to go into those lots and play for hours, until it nearly got too dark to see. Your parents never minded much. As long as they could see you three through the kitchen window at the back of the house, they were fine.
People usually say that Jersey is a horrible place that no one in their right minds should live in, but you just can’t see it as that. Sure there are murders and rapes, gangs and fights, and drugs and alcohol, but which state doesn’t have that? Something happens in any other part of the country and it goes on as an accident of human nature and practically overlooked, but if the same thing would happen in New Jersey, it’s pegged and added to the list people make of why Jersey is so horrible.
They also say it’s dirty as hell, but you can’t see it as entirely New Jersey’s fault either. You live in the state adjoining New York, home of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. People would think that a state with that type of reputation would be the cleanest place in the world? Your state is the one adjacent to it, separated by a lonely river that’s become so polluted; it usually dumps everything into Jersey. The pollution and the waste isn’t Jersey’s fault entirely. Being right next to a Mecca like New York does have its flaws. Jersey just gets the butt end of the deal.
Your random thoughts carry you to other times you’ve been out of the sate and to other parts of New England. It’s practically ironic. With so many times the word ‘New’ is used you’d think the places surrounding would be a little more modernized, but instead everything is a Colonial paradise. You once went on a school funded trip to Connecticut. That place was so green you’d thought you’d be sick of the color by the time you left that evening. You became sick of the way everything seemed to just radiate ‘old’. You’d hated the museums they dragged you to and felt like vandalizing the displays in the science section on the third floor. The entire way back, even though you were still very young and your life was only starting that climb to the climax, you couldn’t imagine living anywhere else in the world. You’d missed the way the Passaic River flows smoothly underneath the bridge making that ten mile connection between Newark and New York even shorter than before. The air was musky, but you still rejoiced in the feeling of it filling your lungs as you stepped out into the fresh air outside the Penn Station.
You suddenly felt the need to see the river flowing by at your feet as you stood at City Dock St. beside the trains. You felt that you needed to see the river as it flowed further and further down until it met up with the Hackensack and emptied into the Bay. Your pride for your home and your state swelled immensely as you felt like crawling through your window just to get to see the sea-green water flowing at your feet as the trains roared by overhead.
Why crawl through the window to get there? You think as a near smile comes to your lips at just the thought of seeing the littered streets and making it as far as the river just to see the mall parking lot on 1st street in Harrison on the other side.
Because he’d kill you if he caught you leaving. Fear floods through you as the thought and it’s consequences finally catches up to you. Reality comes crashing through your euphoric barrier and makes its ugly face known to your pride. You hadn’t known it, but you had steadily been rising from your resting spot against the window sill as the dreams flowed swiftly through your mind, distorting your better judgment.
Your shoulders slump and a loud sigh escapes your lips. You won’t see the river tonight.
You had to stop and count the houses down, go back and check the street name, before you finally allowed yourself to believe that what you were seeing was real. That and you finally seeing the moving van parked beside a regular sized family vehicle at the end of the driveway. Again, you look over at your house next to it and see that even that looks abandoned. The once well-kept paint was now chipping slowly away and falling into the unmanned flower bed below. The weeds had now over taken it so it looks as if no one ever lived there. The faucet on the side of the house stained the pale beige color to a rusty orange, mixed with an aging brown. The porch used to be painted to the same color of the house, the deck reaching all the way across from one edge of the front of the house to the other. The three steps looked very old and seemed that they might break with any more weight applied to them.
It wasn’t until you compared the two houses—one now filled with life and already looking much more nicer than it had in several years, the other rotting and slowly falling apart along with it’s occupants—that you realized you haven’t actually seen the way your house looked nowadays. You usually tried to come in through the back to get quicker access to the staircase anyway. Even though you walk out of there every day and walk back into it every night, you’ve never actually seen it. You have to admit, it looks decrepit.
You glance back at the house that formerly belonged to your cousin and couldn’t help but delve into the memories that you had of that place. You and your cousin grew up together and knew everything about one another. Well…almost everything as it all turned out.
You remember watching this house as it slowly filled with people until it nearly exploded among itself during the holidays. You, of course, lived next door, but you hardly ever played at your house or even in your own yard. It was always her yard, always her house. You’d play with her in the snow for hours, as the winter crept in earlier than other parts of the country into the Northeast. You’d make snow angels and snow men until your teeth were chattering so loudly the entire room would be able to hear your molars clanking together. Her mother always made hot chocolate afterwards, making the most of all your childhood together. You had a wonderful time, a wonderful life…you had a life.
The events that passed through your minds eye cause a small tear to escape the side of your eye, bringing back the events of earlier that day.
Stop it! You’ve cried enough today. You tell yourself plainly while turning on your heel toward your house, without a backward glance at the smaller version of yourself playing with your older cousin in her snow covered yard.
That’s all they’ll ever be now. Just memories.
-
You reached your room without a fuss. He wasn’t even in the house to begin with. He must have gone out and stayed out. He’s done it before, it’s just very rare. Normally he comes back at exactly the same time every night and lays his “love” forcefully into your sides, creating more bruises that don’t seem to go away, no matter how much you stay away from the house.
It’s better I’m here anyway…Where else could I go? You try to look at everything optimistically now, but when his hand slides sickeningly across your face, making your cheeks burn red and sting, you’d rather be in a cardboard box in a dark alley than there.
You’re just happy that nothing happened tonight. You’ve had enough drama for today, what with the new kid Gerard and the unexpected tears in class.
You change into your nightclothes—black long sleeve shirt with a comic book logo on it with plain, dark blue sweatpants—and sit at the head of your bed while cradling your pillow in your lap. You open your window as far as it will go. Your room had been feeling stuffy with all of your things scattered across the floor in a regularly-teenage, unkempt way. You may not have the life others dream for, but you’re still a teenager.
You smirk to yourself as you fold your arms across the sill of the window, staring into the middle section dividing your house and hers…correction, theirs. Whoever they were. You tongue your lip ring absentmindedly while glancing into the large, empty lot divided by the one way Boyd St. You, him, and your cousin used to go into those lots and play for hours, until it nearly got too dark to see. Your parents never minded much. As long as they could see you three through the kitchen window at the back of the house, they were fine.
People usually say that Jersey is a horrible place that no one in their right minds should live in, but you just can’t see it as that. Sure there are murders and rapes, gangs and fights, and drugs and alcohol, but which state doesn’t have that? Something happens in any other part of the country and it goes on as an accident of human nature and practically overlooked, but if the same thing would happen in New Jersey, it’s pegged and added to the list people make of why Jersey is so horrible.
They also say it’s dirty as hell, but you can’t see it as entirely New Jersey’s fault either. You live in the state adjoining New York, home of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. People would think that a state with that type of reputation would be the cleanest place in the world? Your state is the one adjacent to it, separated by a lonely river that’s become so polluted; it usually dumps everything into Jersey. The pollution and the waste isn’t Jersey’s fault entirely. Being right next to a Mecca like New York does have its flaws. Jersey just gets the butt end of the deal.
Your random thoughts carry you to other times you’ve been out of the sate and to other parts of New England. It’s practically ironic. With so many times the word ‘New’ is used you’d think the places surrounding would be a little more modernized, but instead everything is a Colonial paradise. You once went on a school funded trip to Connecticut. That place was so green you’d thought you’d be sick of the color by the time you left that evening. You became sick of the way everything seemed to just radiate ‘old’. You’d hated the museums they dragged you to and felt like vandalizing the displays in the science section on the third floor. The entire way back, even though you were still very young and your life was only starting that climb to the climax, you couldn’t imagine living anywhere else in the world. You’d missed the way the Passaic River flows smoothly underneath the bridge making that ten mile connection between Newark and New York even shorter than before. The air was musky, but you still rejoiced in the feeling of it filling your lungs as you stepped out into the fresh air outside the Penn Station.
You suddenly felt the need to see the river flowing by at your feet as you stood at City Dock St. beside the trains. You felt that you needed to see the river as it flowed further and further down until it met up with the Hackensack and emptied into the Bay. Your pride for your home and your state swelled immensely as you felt like crawling through your window just to get to see the sea-green water flowing at your feet as the trains roared by overhead.
Why crawl through the window to get there? You think as a near smile comes to your lips at just the thought of seeing the littered streets and making it as far as the river just to see the mall parking lot on 1st street in Harrison on the other side.
Because he’d kill you if he caught you leaving. Fear floods through you as the thought and it’s consequences finally catches up to you. Reality comes crashing through your euphoric barrier and makes its ugly face known to your pride. You hadn’t known it, but you had steadily been rising from your resting spot against the window sill as the dreams flowed swiftly through your mind, distorting your better judgment.
Your shoulders slump and a loud sigh escapes your lips. You won’t see the river tonight.