Through the
wall he could hear the contained, clangorous sound of his sister vomiting into
a pan;
through the
window, he could hear his dad’s truck peel out the driveway & on down the cul-de-sac.
She cried
herself sick; he left.
The sounds entered through different ears & collided in his brain with such force
that an
explosion of frustration overtook him in the form of clenched fists &
teeth.
The remnants
of the blast was evident in his emerald eyes
as he sat in
the chair at his desk, alone.
He wanted to
move away from it all,
but he knew
that wouldn’t help anything.
No, nothing
can help when help is not wanted.
“Is she
okay?” he asked his mother.
“She’ll be
all right. Did he leave?”
“What does
it matter? The damage has been done.”
He was
wrong.
* * * * * * *
She tended
her frantic daughter, calmed her, then retired to her bed.
She looked
at the pictures on the walls of a once-shared room.
* * * * * * *
He returned
to his desk, put his head in his hands.
Moments
later, another explosion:
this one was
outside of his head.
He pushed
away from the desk, ran toward his mother,
but he was
too late.
Shattered
glass covered the beige carpet in a thin layer,
like virgin
snow on an unsuspecting desert.
Tears &
blood mixed in with the shards.
She was not
herself.
Rage poured
out in stuttering breaths.
Blood
trickled down her arms,
the trails
coiling around like a double helix.
The images
and memories were woven into her being, her DNA.
She did not
want them there.
For a few
moments she sat cross-legged atop her own destruction,
head bobbing
with the sobbing.
She then
took notice of the blood,
took notice
of her son standing in the doorway.
The memories
had been painfully removed from their frames,
from their
glass borders.
Maybe now
she will finally let them go.
“Clean this
up, I’ll get some band aids,” was all he could utter.
On his way
out the house, he shut his sister’s door,
sheltering
her from the images of her own home.
* * * * * * *
The ending
of an end is just another beginning.
