Written in Lit Class

My father is a mortician. I stand in the corner and watch him talk with the family of the dead. He is calm, maintaining a delicate balance between standing aloof and stooping to the emotional depths of the grieving. His head nods sympathetically as a young man tearfully tells a story about his dead brother.
My father is an angry man. He slams the door when he comes home from the bar after work. He always goes to the bar. His face is always red, turning purple when he talks to my brother and me. He talks loudly to my brother and me.
But not to my mother. My father loves my mother. He talks quietly to her, running his hand up and down her back while she bends over the stove. She tells him to get out of the kitchen, to take his feet off the table, and to wash his hands. But my mother loves my father.
My father doesn't like silence. He likes to play the accordian and to make people laugh. Every Sunday night, wehn there is no work and the bar is closed, he fills the house with his friends, and they laugh and sing and eat my mother's strawberry pie till the early morning. My brother and I like to sit at the top of the stairs and listen, till my mother catchs us and sweeps us up to bed.
My father is not a handsome man. His red face is framed by thinning black hair on his crown and his chin. His eyes are small and squirmy, so light that their blue is almost white. He has a large belly, which shakes with both laughter and rage. His hands are smooth and soft, like the dough my mother kneeds on Friday mornings. My uncles laugh at him when they visit from their farms in the east; they with their hands of rock, with black stains permenantly splotching their brown leather.

Holes

I hate the deep, empty chasms. I hate not seeing the bottom. Having my back to it is worse. I had a dream a few years ago where I was a mouse (I think I ate just before bed) and I was dragged (literally) by my uncle (who was a devil) to see hell. And hell . . . hell was a pit. But I could see the bottom--at least some of it. These mice were suspended from the . . . ceiling? Just over huge spiders. A spider per mouse. The mice were just low enough that there was always the danger of being snapped up by the spider . . . but they never were. And I, standing there on the edge of the cliff with my uncle, was terrified.
A few years before that I had a dream with holes. This was less . . . storylike, however. I just remember a sea of holes--large holes, about six feet across--and out of each one a huge worm was squeezing. I don't mind earthworms, but I'm not so keen on worm with teeth. Which these did. And it was nasty, and I woke up terribly frightened.

Beating

I want a punching bag. Something to get all the hurt out. Maybe if I just hit something hard enough, it'll all go away . . . maybe if I just hit me hard enough . . .
This is when I want to run more than anything. To get away from it. But my body refuses to cooperate. I could be stuck in a wheelchair for all the difference it makes now.
"I have a split lip, a black eye, and a bloody nose. My arms are too tired to lift, and my legs no longer respond to my mind signals, telling them to move. I am an open target, a sitting duck. And he stands above me and raises his fist. And there's nothing I can do to stop him. It descends on me. Once, twice, he doesn't stop. I don't want him to stop. For as long as he beats me, I feel Something . . ."

Mocktail

I didn't want to go, but Katie Jeanne didn't really give me a choice. So there I was, dressed in some bloomin' ridiculous dress of hers, surrounded by beautiful women talking to swankily dressed men. A mocktail party. I was at a mocktail party. Are You Freakin' Kidding Me?!?!

I was reminded, however, that no matter how much this sort of thing makes me uncomfortable, it is good for the soul to be dressed up and placed in a blasted situation of this sort. One, because you are forced to rise above, and two, because it requires you to talk. I don't like talking in those circumstances, but what are you going to do? Spit in their face? Well, I could . . . I opted against it.

I was impressed, however, that I didn't have a single spasm the whole time. I grant you, I took my meds before going, but still . . . it didn't bother me nearly as much as German can. Interesting.

Just for Right Now

Just for right now
Just for one foot ahead of the other
Just for right now
Before my head begins to smother
I won't forget
The way you promised you would never leave me
I won't forget
The things you said were not meant to deceive me
Just for right now
I take my next step and I pray I won't falter
Just for right now
I lay it all down upon your alter
And now I will sing
For all the goodness you have lavished on me
Now I will sing
I don't have to see it, I know that I've been freed
Just for right now
Just for one foot ahead of the other
Just for right now
Before my head begins to smother
I won't forget
The way you promised you would never leave me
I won't forget
The things you said were not meant to deceive me
Though right now I don't feel it