this house

A kind of miracle. I may never pay it off; But as long as I can scrape to make the note, we’ll never drift: never be at someone else’s mercy. A single mom is expected to raise her kids without a yard, sharing bedrooms. Mine will not suffer for their parent’s mistakes. I promised myself that when he left. They have new clothes, a fridge that's almost always full; we go out to dinner sometimes. They take piano lessons. They'll never want for anything. I will keep this promise. The hours are long; but I can work at home. They don’t have to be alone, wear keys around their necks, wake themselves up. I can still be here when they really need me. I put band-aids on their cuts, hold them when they cry, take care of them.

A filthy cage. She works all day for the money to keep it, worries all night that it won't be enough. The filth builds. These walls will fall in on us one day. Her glassy eyes, her slack jaw. Hunched over the keyboard, she sends me outside, or to my room. I want to talk to her, So I sit on this patch of carpet Under her desk, listening to her type. Wearing cheap clothes and eating cereal with the black and white label: it's embarrassing. She wasted money on that old piano, when I just want nice clothes; I want brand name food. All she does is work. I think she suffers from being alone all the time. Mornings, she screams up the stairs, like she’s too weak to climb them. I sit under her desk. Her knees press my shoulder. I listen to the keys click overhead. Once, I cut myself on purpose so she would bend down to me.