I can remember being 7 years old and having gold fish that circled around in a bowl and I would watch the forest burn and listen to the wind blow I can remember the table, the drapes and the window the dark brown everything, decorations, styling most of all I can remember my mother smiling worn out and faded, my home town was scrappy more than anything she wanted us to be happy
little to eat, back and forth to the hospital she was right, it's better to be happy if possible but the old man was under attack and was weak and continued to beat us several times a week he lived like a king even though we were piss poor I tried to be strong and careful what I wished for my outsides ache and my insides stung from the long leather belt that replaced his tongue
not knowing how to run or how to hit the brakes a white picket fence was built around a pit of snakes both a wonder and frightening, the thunder and lightening these were the sounds and sights of a thousand fights my mother, the poor fish, staging eternal cherades and parades for the raging inferno wanting to be happy, beaten all the while asking me always 'Why don't you ever smile?' and she'd show me how to do it, mother and wife it was the saddest smile I ever saw in my life and it hurt worse than death but for her sake I tried and one day all of those gold fish died
hurricane, forest fire, out of control eyes open, floating on the water in the bowl and when my father came home, he walked through the door and threw those fish to the cat on the kitchen floor
and the wind died too and I was still a child and the three of us watched as my mother smiled
and the wind died too and I was still a child and the three of us watched as my mother smiled
and the wind died too and I was still a child and the three of us watched as my mother smiled