A Shot In The Arm.
Downstairs she sings and it's only occasionally muffled out by the lawnmower leveling the yard across the street and the children who belong to that very yard shouting the cryptic verses to some game that we probably wouldn't understand even if they explained it. It sounds like summer and I think about how if she were still at home I would probably be promising to take her for a drive to see how everything's in bloom. It would seem like a good idea while suggesting it, and the actuality of it would be impossible, an exercise in frustration. I have been trying to shore up my reserves to go and see her, but it has proved difficult. I still haven't made it over.
The burnt eggos are the only beloved memory that I have. I think she hated us when we were kids, I don't know why. I remember how badly I wanted to go to the hospital gift shop with her on her voluteer shift, how each and every single year I was still too young but would be old enough next year. When I was ten I wised up and stopped asking. I remember a family dinner when I was eighteen during which she turned the conversation toward when AJ and I were babies, how we would cry simply to spite her. I have gone over there so many times in the past several months, armed with pictures of bright and cheery things, in the hopes of blowing some of the cobwebs out of her soul. I even took Rugby over a few times. What I've realized is that these visits have always been made out of a sense of duty, and not out of any real kinship or desire to spend time with her. That maybe she thinks the cobwebs are the only thing she has, so why even think of getting rid of them? That is a hard thing to admit, but there it is. I really just don't like her all that much. I feel sorry for her. I think about how much she has tortured my mom since bubba died, and I start to feel a loathing that makes me grit my teeth. After this weekend my jaws are sore. And we're all family, so what the hell can you do? I hope that when we die the truth comes barrelling down at us out of some soft somewhere, so that she can finally understand something, finally give up all of the nagging self conciousness and self pity. So that she can finally maybe legitimately be happy.
The burnt eggos are the only beloved memory that I have. I think she hated us when we were kids, I don't know why. I remember how badly I wanted to go to the hospital gift shop with her on her voluteer shift, how each and every single year I was still too young but would be old enough next year. When I was ten I wised up and stopped asking. I remember a family dinner when I was eighteen during which she turned the conversation toward when AJ and I were babies, how we would cry simply to spite her. I have gone over there so many times in the past several months, armed with pictures of bright and cheery things, in the hopes of blowing some of the cobwebs out of her soul. I even took Rugby over a few times. What I've realized is that these visits have always been made out of a sense of duty, and not out of any real kinship or desire to spend time with her. That maybe she thinks the cobwebs are the only thing she has, so why even think of getting rid of them? That is a hard thing to admit, but there it is. I really just don't like her all that much. I feel sorry for her. I think about how much she has tortured my mom since bubba died, and I start to feel a loathing that makes me grit my teeth. After this weekend my jaws are sore. And we're all family, so what the hell can you do? I hope that when we die the truth comes barrelling down at us out of some soft somewhere, so that she can finally understand something, finally give up all of the nagging self conciousness and self pity. So that she can finally maybe legitimately be happy.
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