Family Room

Slumber sweet tiny nothing
worries melt away
in gentle rolling waves
Bliss relaxing the day away

Rush in stinging pit in gut
Panic throwing mini upright

Alone

Alone

Alone

respite has run away
   slumber ripped out of grasp

Momma's gone again.

Sneaky Momma, where've you gone?
Off to buy a six pack
 
      slurred laughter trumps pain.

Highland Duplex III

Had like a bedroom and a half
Little one got the back room to herself
Tiny screamer left to stay with mom's mom

Little one
Things piled high on the bed
deep within lay tiny guitar
Guitar like dad plays
Guitar like dad gave

Then mom fought with her friend
The pile was crushed
And tiny guitar
Gone
Gone
Gone

Highland Duplex II

Night time caught in the rain
Playing family
New guy
Mom's friend
Leaping from bus to curb to puddly grass
Glow in the dark necklaces
Souvenirs from Fiesta
Smiles on tired small faces
Kisses goodnight on cheeks

Smiles all gone
Beer cans overflow stained kitchen trash can
Fear keeps the lights switched off

Tiny nothing, what wakes you?

New guy
On
Top
Of
Mom

Fists
Pounding
Her
 face

Tiny nothing on his back
Exerting every ounce of strength to make him stop
Nothing works

Now police send him walking
T-shirt hung coolly over naked shoulder
It's stopped raining


Tiny nothing sitting on neighbors' couch
Every light on
Legs shake
Eyes stare
No blinking
Big people incoherently talk

Legs
Don't
Stop
Shaking

Highland Duplex

Tiny nothing child

You couldn't know what you'd see

Couldn't know what you'd feel

When mom's visiting naked man sneaked to take a leak

tortilla

I sit at home. I take care of my house, husband and children. I love metaphors. I am a born-again, Bible-believing Christian. I'm sarcastic. I love peanut butter cookies. I love being in love with my husband and being loved back. 

My two-year-old daughter is taking a nap on a cozy couch as I sit at the desk mumbling here. 28 years old with a useless-to-the-world degree in theology from an unaccredited college. I bring in no money. A paycheck isn't my proof of worthiness to the world. I'm not the best at what I do. Most of my friends are better cooks, and managers of their homes. I'm a mediocre housewife.

My mother was not. She was a single mom who worked a full time job. She drank and partied on the weekends. I'd like to say that she tried her best with the lot she had. I'd like to say that although life was rough, everything turned out fine. I can't. It was painful. It was very painful. Grandma was my after school care. I have wonderful memories of those afternoons. Whether the weather was warm or chilly my brother, cousins and I sat in front of the TV and soaked in our after school cartoons. Grandma would make us lunch. Sometimes it would be chicken noodle soup and bologna sandwiches, sometimes homemade nachos. There in the living room on the crimson carpet we sat inches from the TV hardly blinking while Darkwing Duck fought bad guys, or Lamb Chop and Charlie Horse told knock-knock jokes. Grandma would start making tortillas about that time of day. No matter how loud we set the volume, the sound of her metal rolling pin thudding the counter flattening perfect circles of masa could be heard. Thud. Roll. Thud. Roll. And as we were hypnotized by Raphael's Teenage awesomeness a small wad of masa smacking a face would snap us out of it. Then another. Grandma had started a masa fight. We'd accuse her and she'd deny anything. Her smiling face couldn't hide her guilt. We'd scramble on our knees to find little balls of masa to throw back at her, but as fast as we'd fire, she'd fire right back. I don't think she ever missed a target. Some Friday nights Mom wouldn't come home. She'd go out to bars with who knows who. I'd sit in Grandma's kitchen until the early morning sobbing into her green plastic rotary phone calling every friend in her floral phone book asking if Mom was there. Grandma would come by in her night gown and rub my knee or shoulder and tell me to go to bed. Sometimes I would. She stopped making tortillas years ago. 

I can't make a good tortilla. Not like hers. I graduated 10 years ago. Most of my classmates have smug careers. Some are bloated with beer and aged by long nights in the dark doing things that they're ashamed of. I don't drink on the weekends, or party. I don't have a smug career and neither does my husband. We make just enough to get by. I love my kids the way I wasn't loved. Trump.