Turn on the faucet and add soap.
Add dirty dishes, a new washcloth.
Listen.
Intricately eradicate messy food and a broken glass from dinner before submerging and suffocating this evening’s utensils.
Somewhere in the distance a match screeches in contact with a hard surface. A cigarette is lit.
The evening television presents the news of the day – never inquiring about the details of your adventures and activities of the day. Only the lives of others.
“How was your day?” – “Good.”
Reach into the messy water and pull out the plug.
Listen.
Staring into the drain, you allow everything to whirlpool into oblivion. Dry the dishes and place them in their respective places.
Two glasses are missing, as expected.
Ice rattles in the next room.
The pressure of a bottle of coke is released and its contents are poured. A new bottle is opened, one without pressure, and poured. Sip. More pouring. Sip.
Someone flops into the chair and the TV volume is turned up.
You like to imagine that maybe it’s not your father, that someone else has come into your living room and invaded your home.
The kitchen is clean, dishes are done. You are excused.
Silently you make your way through the kitchen and behind the living room. In a straight line of sight you can see your father in his chair and your mother in her bed watching TV. Both are ingesting their after dinner, before dinner and during dinner snack.
Expecting a “Thank you!” you stand silently for just a moment, sigh, and move on to your room.
Retreating here, everything is different. Posters and medals and trophies cover the walls. A faded drill team uniform hangs lonely in the corner – you haven’t been in months.
You put in your favorite CD, light a candle and try to disappear. It’s called astral projection – an out of body experience. They say you can go anywhere and not take your body with you. Like a ghost.
It doesn’t work.
You enter the bathroom.
Turn on the faucet, but don’t add soap.
Step on the scale.
Not good enough.
Intricately eradicate messy food.
Step on the scale again.
That’s better.
Slowly lower yourself into the tub, feeling it’s warmth on every inch of your body – it’s the best you’ve felt all day.
Things seem better now. It’s okay, you are going to be beautiful some day and then everyone will love you. It’s okay that it isn’t today – you are just saving up time.
This evening’s utensils slowly drag across your skin, but only for a moment. You’ve saved a piece of broken glass from dinner. Today wasn’t that bad.
Reach into the messy water and pull out the plug
Stare at the chain and allow everything to whirlpool into oblivion.
Sitting in the tub you feel gravity pull you closer to the ground – reminding you of things you do not need reminding of.
Get ready for bed.
You pop four pink and white ones. Lectures are heard coming from the living room – you are angry.
Screaming into your pillow, you claw at the sheets. Crying your voice away. Crying yourself away.
The medicine begins to distort your room, oblivion is near.
You reach over and grab a slip of paper containing your grades for the semester.
Holding it against your chest, you close your eyes. Tomorrow you will leave it on the dining room table…maybe someone will see it.
Right before you fall asleep, you think – “Things will be so much better when I’m a teenager.”