rule of roses

Over the smoking remains of our family, there’s breakfast. The waffles are shaped like bear heads. I stab their stupid faces. They lie there and bleed syrup.

“Mom makes waffles when the world is ending,” Liam informs me, and merrily stabs his own waffle.  At ten and a half he’s too old to fool and too young to tell the truth to.  

“The world is not ending,” I grunt.

“But it’s changing,” He says sagely, like a syrup-smeared Lao Tzu. “Probably for the worst. Last time she made waffles was when you killed Muffy practicing parallel parking.”

I throw him a nasty glare and toss my waffles in the trash. I step around the pooling shards of broken lamp on my way to the bathroom. Blood smears under the door. I knock.

“I’m almost done!” Mom hiccups. “J-Just give me a second.”

“You should use tweezers.”

“I’m fine! Just make sure your brother eats and gets in the car.”

I grab my hoodie from my room, and pass by the master bedroom. Dad’s suitcase is still on the bed, half-filled. Faint grunting comes from the closet. Rex, our leaky-eyed pug, chews on Dad’s dress shoe. He’s been chewing the moment Dad walked out the door. Seven hours, now. He’s in heaven. I crouch on the carpet and watch him be happy.

 Liam comes in and sits by me. Rex chews the shiny leather into mush while Mom’s sobs echo through the walls.

“Good boy,” Liam says.

                        #

Last year, I was fifteen, and I tried to tell my neighbors nobody ever really dies.

They smiled and said I was too young to be so old.

Last year, I tried to tell Naomi, too. Except I was crying. Except she didn’t listen. The rope kept digging into her snowy neck and her feet kept swinging. Softly. Like a wind was blowing her, holding her up. Like the space between her feet and the floor didn’t exist. She was floating, somewhere people couldn’t touch her. Somewhere the ground couldn’t drag her back down.

Dad told me once if you prayed hard, you could talk to the dead and they would talk to you back. Dad is full of shit and Naomi never says anything. Dad’s going to a new family, one he likes better I guess, and Naomi’s rotting in a box and smiling back at me from school remembrance posters and she’ll never say what I need to hear.

I forgive you.

                        #

There are places you can go if you wanna be completely alone while surrounded by people. Some people call it church. Some people call it a park. A café. I call it high school.