Status: Cautiously Active
Crazy Girl
Her.
It smells like spaghetti bowl, a smell I always associated with her, my mother, because it was my father’s favourite meal and she would make it on special occasions, like the anniversary or the day before his birthday, the day before we held a party honouring his life. I wonder when we stopped honouring her life, I wonder when she felt there was no choice left but to end it all. I wonder a lot of things and rarely get the answers I desire, the truth I need to survive on, thrive on even.
Spaghetti is such a simple dish, one easily replicated and though the smells between Marissa’s dish and my mothers are similar I know Marissa’s food will not taste as even remotely good as my mother’s did, she had a special skill in the kitchen my mother. She was the type of woman who could whip together a dish from the left over ingredients in the cupboard and fridge, it was always amazing to me. And how she enjoyed cooking, enjoyed making food for her loved ones.
The thought warms me but I am still so cold, frozen even, because here I sit at my mother’s table with another woman’s food in front of me, begging to be eaten. And though I want to eat it to please my father I cannot because it is not my mother’s recipe, it is not his favourite but boy does he act like it is, slurping and making little yummy noises as he eats, a spaghetti stained smile on his face.
I want to ask why he is changing himself so much but the words they don’t come. And I am left waiting on another truth to survive. Our table was only really meant for three people at most and as such am forced to stare right into Ryders eyes as I pretend to eat, a part of me wants to refuse this food, wants to tell Marissa it is awful but another much larger part of me does not want to hurt my father any more than he has already been hurt.
Ryder keeps kicking my leg and I cannot for the life of me tell if it is intentional or not. I want to kick him back but I don’t, I really don’t want to create a scene. I just want to leave, go to my bedroom and cry for my lost mother. When I was little we used to go to church and the pastor always told me suicide is a mortal sin, and I can’t help but wonder where my mother is now, in love with heaven or in hate with hell.
I wonder what it is like to die, many nights alone in my room I have felt that longing, that urge to do something irreversible like my mother did but then I think of my father being all alone and it kills my urges, my wants, hell my desires. I know it is my disease that makes me feel this way, like I am slowly losing my mind, but that does not make it any easier to deal with, my mother could not deal with it and I stand alone at her grave waiting for it to all fall into place and finally make sense. But it never does, especially not here in my kitchen with new furniture watching me from across the room and Ryder kicking my shin like he is playing a soccer match.
Marissa sits in her chair stretching her back after a long day at work, she is a teacher at the high school a town over. She often brings her work home and I hope my father will bore of her soon, that this whole thing will be a distant memory to me and my father. My father works as a writer and spends his days locked away in his office working on another best seller. I was never blessed with the ability to write and have always been jealous of my father for having that talent, I want to be able to write out my feelings until they make sense to me, but I can’t. Everything I write is flat and one dimensional, there is no heart, no feelings and no sorrow.
I think I will forever be jealous of my father not only for being an amazing writer but also for moving on from my mother so fast, it has only been a year since she died and already he is moving in another woman. It makes me sad, and I hope my mother wherever she may be now is not sad too. I want if nothing else, for her in death to finally be happy.
I had planned, on the day after Marissa moved in, to say all these terrible things to her but I realised I would only hurt my father and that is the last thing I want. Whilst I do not want to share my home or my heart with Ryder and Marissa I am fearing I may have to. I may have to share the rooms my mother loved with them and no amount of terrible things said will ever get rid of them, at least not until my father is ready to rid the house, my heart, of them and that scares me because what if he never tires of Marissa’s face, her laugh or her heart.
“Isn’t this the best pasta you’ve ever tasted?” My dad asks me,
And all of a sudden I feel like I am losing myself, losing even more my tenuous grip on reality the further Marissa and Ryder move in. I feel myself slipping further and further down the rabbit hole with nothing left to cling to. My father has abandoned me, my heart, my mother, for another woman and it is slowly killing me. Slowly driving me further insane. And I want to scream and tell him the truth but I can’t because I know he won’t understand. I fear even more though that he will no longer care.
And that is the scariest thought I have had in a long time, scarier that the voices and the things I see, far scarier because it is real and reality has always been my downfall, my biggest fear.
Spaghetti is such a simple dish, one easily replicated and though the smells between Marissa’s dish and my mothers are similar I know Marissa’s food will not taste as even remotely good as my mother’s did, she had a special skill in the kitchen my mother. She was the type of woman who could whip together a dish from the left over ingredients in the cupboard and fridge, it was always amazing to me. And how she enjoyed cooking, enjoyed making food for her loved ones.
The thought warms me but I am still so cold, frozen even, because here I sit at my mother’s table with another woman’s food in front of me, begging to be eaten. And though I want to eat it to please my father I cannot because it is not my mother’s recipe, it is not his favourite but boy does he act like it is, slurping and making little yummy noises as he eats, a spaghetti stained smile on his face.
I want to ask why he is changing himself so much but the words they don’t come. And I am left waiting on another truth to survive. Our table was only really meant for three people at most and as such am forced to stare right into Ryders eyes as I pretend to eat, a part of me wants to refuse this food, wants to tell Marissa it is awful but another much larger part of me does not want to hurt my father any more than he has already been hurt.
Ryder keeps kicking my leg and I cannot for the life of me tell if it is intentional or not. I want to kick him back but I don’t, I really don’t want to create a scene. I just want to leave, go to my bedroom and cry for my lost mother. When I was little we used to go to church and the pastor always told me suicide is a mortal sin, and I can’t help but wonder where my mother is now, in love with heaven or in hate with hell.
I wonder what it is like to die, many nights alone in my room I have felt that longing, that urge to do something irreversible like my mother did but then I think of my father being all alone and it kills my urges, my wants, hell my desires. I know it is my disease that makes me feel this way, like I am slowly losing my mind, but that does not make it any easier to deal with, my mother could not deal with it and I stand alone at her grave waiting for it to all fall into place and finally make sense. But it never does, especially not here in my kitchen with new furniture watching me from across the room and Ryder kicking my shin like he is playing a soccer match.
Marissa sits in her chair stretching her back after a long day at work, she is a teacher at the high school a town over. She often brings her work home and I hope my father will bore of her soon, that this whole thing will be a distant memory to me and my father. My father works as a writer and spends his days locked away in his office working on another best seller. I was never blessed with the ability to write and have always been jealous of my father for having that talent, I want to be able to write out my feelings until they make sense to me, but I can’t. Everything I write is flat and one dimensional, there is no heart, no feelings and no sorrow.
I think I will forever be jealous of my father not only for being an amazing writer but also for moving on from my mother so fast, it has only been a year since she died and already he is moving in another woman. It makes me sad, and I hope my mother wherever she may be now is not sad too. I want if nothing else, for her in death to finally be happy.
I had planned, on the day after Marissa moved in, to say all these terrible things to her but I realised I would only hurt my father and that is the last thing I want. Whilst I do not want to share my home or my heart with Ryder and Marissa I am fearing I may have to. I may have to share the rooms my mother loved with them and no amount of terrible things said will ever get rid of them, at least not until my father is ready to rid the house, my heart, of them and that scares me because what if he never tires of Marissa’s face, her laugh or her heart.
“Isn’t this the best pasta you’ve ever tasted?” My dad asks me,
And all of a sudden I feel like I am losing myself, losing even more my tenuous grip on reality the further Marissa and Ryder move in. I feel myself slipping further and further down the rabbit hole with nothing left to cling to. My father has abandoned me, my heart, my mother, for another woman and it is slowly killing me. Slowly driving me further insane. And I want to scream and tell him the truth but I can’t because I know he won’t understand. I fear even more though that he will no longer care.
And that is the scariest thought I have had in a long time, scarier that the voices and the things I see, far scarier because it is real and reality has always been my downfall, my biggest fear.