Memories

Jamie is doing this amaaaazing idea that I just love love loved, so I, too, am participating.


*I'm standing against the wall, it's cold, I feel all the heat leave the room with your last breath. And then it's over.

*I thought you were my friends. I thought I could call you that. Instead you pushed me. You pushed things on top of me. You blamed me, far longer than you should have.

*I found a flower patterned overnight bag. So I packed my things and left.

*I'm standing in line for lunch next to the picture of the pope, then Jesus. Suddenly I'm throwing up my breakfast (cup of noodles, obviously) all over Angela's white Keds. 

*I had a reoccurring dream. Once a month, at least. Something about a gunsmith shop, and a barrel of gun powder. So I slept on the floor of my parents room, next to my dad's side. He stepped on me when he woke up.

*Frost covered the bottoms of our dining room window. So, I would sit on the bay seat, watching my mom leave for work, crying, and scratching the ice off the window and sucking it off of my fingers.

*I was minding my own business, being a 5th or 6th grader enjoying my summer in my driveway, drawing with sidewalk chalk, when Sheldon rollarbladed down to my house and asked if I would be his "honey."

*I wanted to change the light bulb. So I pulled everything off the ceiling and watched in horror as thousands of itty bitty baby spiders crawled out from the hole.

*We're at an animal reserve, on a dirt highway. We're in the green Explorer, my dad is driving. He slows to a stop on a curve and open and closes his door over a rattle snake to make it hiss.

*He shows up unexpectedly because he's not allowed to stay there anymore. So he stays in my guest room on the floor. He refuses a cot, a blanket, a shower. I cry myself to sleep every night, quietly come and go. He does the dishes although he eats nothing. He brings a paper, checks the online ads. Then he's gone. Everything is okay.