Woebegone
Seven
We argue very loudly in the morning. He spits words like daggers, they rip open my skin and prickle my blood with poison. Things are broken and a wall is dented and his hand will bruise. At one point I think he’s about to hit me but he doesn’t. He wouldn’t. The screams are ugly and grate my ears. My voice becomes unstable and it quivers, I can’t think of anymore words nor can my voice say them. He’s a grizzly bear and I feel like a mouse. His voice steps on me, deflated, I just listen to his anger.
In the moment of quiet I leave. He grips the counter, hands white, but I’m gone.
The sun is warm or perhaps my body is just so cold that any form of heat burns. I think of being a child when everything was happy and I buy a strawberry milkshake. They deliver it with a generous scoop of ice cream floating inside. It even taste like childhood, like some of the sun is pocketed inside. I dig into my pocket and find the last ten dollars. I buy a book and read it until my eyes hurt from the word’s. It’s a sad story.
I return home but the house is empty. I can feel the mornings argument in the air. It’s thick like glue, sticking to everything in the house, including my skin. On the table are flowers but I’m too afraid to pick them up in case my touch kills them. I almost choke on the thought that he brought them for me, he’s never done anything like that in my life.
In the moment of quiet I leave. He grips the counter, hands white, but I’m gone.
The sun is warm or perhaps my body is just so cold that any form of heat burns. I think of being a child when everything was happy and I buy a strawberry milkshake. They deliver it with a generous scoop of ice cream floating inside. It even taste like childhood, like some of the sun is pocketed inside. I dig into my pocket and find the last ten dollars. I buy a book and read it until my eyes hurt from the word’s. It’s a sad story.
I return home but the house is empty. I can feel the mornings argument in the air. It’s thick like glue, sticking to everything in the house, including my skin. On the table are flowers but I’m too afraid to pick them up in case my touch kills them. I almost choke on the thought that he brought them for me, he’s never done anything like that in my life.