Fire Within the Frame

Red cedar A-frame house
Sharp edges evident
from the inside

Souza's hair just
reaches her father's waist
My, how she's grown

An apron, stilettos, a strand of pearls
Seasoned ground beef
burns unnoticed

A whiskey sour nursed
above speared celery stalks
and the apron's knot

Second story spigot
Souza uncurls
in a tepid bath

Father's boots mount
the spiraling staircase
Hand-railings quake

Father cocks his head
inside the arching doorframe
Souza cries, widens her legs

Point-filed nails finger
pearls and collapse a stainless
steel lid onto the crockpot

Release of Grip

I secured myself a sponsor today.
I sat in the pink, cushioned chair, middle row, center, left knee over the right, wrinkling my toes up in my sandals. I listened, sunk it all in, laughed, teared up once, became distracted by my own thoughts.
And then there it was. The words I had been waiting for, anticipating, fearing:
"And now it's time for the newcomers to share."
I did not hesitate as I normally do, sink my eyes to the carpet and nibble on my bottom lip.
No, this time I spoke up. This was my miracle of the day.
"I'm Souza, and I'm an alcoholic."
To go any further into detail would be a breach of trusted contract, a disclosure to what is deemed anonymous. So, I will not.
I will say that by the mere announcement of words, by the simple act of speaking, I opened myself up to a world, a lifestyle, a community of self-worth and strength, of courage and support. But most of all, I opened myself up to hope.
Will any of this be easy? Hell no. I don't want it to be. But I will do what must be done.
My son sleeps in his own bed tonight. Has been for two weeks now. I am stretching along the lop-sided length of my pull-out couch. Cool sheets and satin comforter up to my waist. He is five feet away. He is safe. And I will wake him in the morning for school. He will go one way, and I the other, and in late afternoon we will greet each other in the middle, in the spine-tingling balance of things. I will say,"How was your day, honey?"
He will sputter off into a fourth grade language I barely understand, and I will nod and smile and tell him how great that is.
He will look at me then, sizing me up, intuitively reading my emotional state before his words become slow and cautious.
"How about you, mom? Was your day good?"
He might look at the wall or his feet or pretend to be searching for a misplaced video game.
He might run his fingers through his thick brown hair and hum a song under his breath.
He is afraid of my answer and he has every right to be.
Today, at least, I was able to say, "Great, babe. It was a really great day."
He smiles, jumps on his bed, twirls around his light saber and says how starving he is.
Tomorrow, I can't promise what my answer will be. I cannot give him that absolute safety every moment of his life, that absolute answer of, "Great day, hon."
But I have hope. And I have faith.
And the more nights he can curl under his own sheets and wake with me five feet away, so can I face life without a bottle in my grip.

We Do Not Run

There is never really an end point to anything. Not the dandelion stem, the apple core, the Coke bottle, the high school jeans, the universe. Love. Everything, however minute, continues on, transforms into a new material form, a new body of essence, of realization. It all keeps growing, changing, recycling into even more magnificence.
Patience. We have to wait for the wind to carry the seedlings to another corner of the lawn, wait until Spring for the apple core to bury its roots into soil, wait for the plastic to be crushed, melted, remolded into tupperware, wait for our daughters to fill in the hips of our jeans and argue over who gets to wear them to the mall, wait for the universe to expand into plateaus only our future generations will bear witness to.
And love. We will always wait for love. We will heal for it, be selfish and selfless for it, embrace it when it is near, embrace it even more when it needs mending, when thread and needle and a steady hand is not quite enough. We may take one small step back, but we do not run. We do not run from or to. We stay grounded in our place, take notice of the world around us, take notice of ourselves. Patience. Change. Acceptance.
Never an end to anything. An apple orchard where once was fallen, embered crops.

What is there to tell? Part 2

Souza's mother plopped down within the girls' inner circle, oblivious to the nervous laughter, the eyes of envy and guilt, Souza picking at a scab on her knee.

"Whatt'cha girls playing?" her mother asked.

"Truth or Dare," Molly answered meekly, head down.

"Oh my god, I haven't played that in forever. Okay, this is what we'll do. If anyone refuses the dare or acts like a little mouse and doesn't tell the truth, they have to swallow three swigs of beer. If they still refuse, it's a shot of vodka. Got it, girls?"

"I've had beer before. No big deal," said Malia, her red bangle bracelets flopping up and down her wrist in excitement.

Molly and Anna, identical twins, looked to one another, speaking their uncertainty through their eyes.

"So, we have a deal?" her mother spoke, irritated at the girls' silence, their hesitancy. "Don't worry, I won't tell your parents, sillies. This'll be our own little party secret. You're all spending the night anyway. You'll be safe here."

Anna shrugged, "Okay."

Molly followed her suit, though the shrug was smaller, more contained.

"Alright, let's start. Who spins first?" her mother spit out, noisily extracting five beers from the case and flinging one a t each girl's feet.

She then placed the vodka in between her own crossed, unshaven legs, the ice-frosted bottle leaning against her stomach, leaving patchy marks of wetness on her dress.

"Oh, that feels good. It's a hot one today, isn't it?" she sighed, looking at her watch. "Three O'clock, already? Just in time for Happy Hour, huh, girls?"

"Heck, yeh!" Malia answered, using her long pointer finger nail to pop open her can of beer.

Sour smelling foam erupted from the can like white lava, inching down the sides of aluminum and dampening the wooden floor.

Souza's mother laughed,an open-mouthed, inviting laugh. Malia laughed with her, licking the foam from her fingers as if it was frosting right from the bowl.

Souza could not believe any of this was happening. Where was Bobby, the hot pepper, the shirt tags at their necks? This was her party, her slumber birthday bash. She had had everything planned. This silly game, a half dozen Tiger Beat magazines on her bed with scissors and tape to plaster her walls with cutouts of Johnny and Cameron, Keanu and New Kids on the Block. She had popcorn and pajamas and her Molly Ringwald movie collection. The sleeping bags on her bedroom floor, pillows sprinkled with Jelly Bellies and Hot Tamale candies. She was pissed. Could she say "pissed?" Hell, god-damn, yes, she could. She could say anything she wanted, scream it into the blustering air. Tissy-fit tantrum right into her mother's ears.
She could do this. She could do all of this.
As long as her mouth was closed.
As long as her mind was her only listener.


To be continued...

What is there to tell?

Four girls sitting cross-legged in a circle
on a wooden patio floor with an empty
beer bottle spinning in the center,
glass mouth slowing to point at the girl
whose truth will be whispered behind
smooth, shaking hands or a dare will be calculated
between the other three. Arched eyebrows
and sly smiles, giggles bubbling in their throats
like a shaken soda can. Will she have to call
Bobby? Eat a jalapeno pepper? Parade down
the driveway with her clothes on backwards,
squawking and flapping her arms? What will
they have her do, what secret will she disclose
and make them swear on their mothers' lives
not to tell a soul, to keep their mouths locked
like a safe? It is Souza's fourteenth birthday.
Pink balloons tacked to the rafters, black
streamers sweeping from the ceiling, under
and over each other as fingers look when locked.
The bottle's mouth slid into Souza's bare toe
and stopped. "Truth," all the girls squealed
at once, staring at her like prey in a fire pit.
She sucked on the inside of her bottom lip,
sucked her gut in until she could feel ribs,
sucked the truth in through her fingertips,
her heels, the base of her skull, the odored
sweating between her legs. The sliding
glass door opened and Souza's mother
pranced in like an unsteady gazelle
with a case of beer in one hand
and a bottle of cheap vodka in the other.
"Let's get this party started, girls,"
she slurred between hiccups and a long
blonde mane flipping in her eyes
from the wind, the hot Hawaiian air.
The three girls looked from one to the other,
absolute glee, absolute fear. "Your mom
is so cool, Souza." "She's not gonna tell
my parents, is she?" "Eww, what does vodka
taste like?" "I don't know," Souza said,
her hands in her lap, eyes following
a large gecko to the edge of the patio's rim.

To be continued...