As I sat and watched the sun diminish behind the horizon, I felt alone.
The warm glow that had caressed my face for hours now turned into a cool sting of night frost. Still I sat in the empty parking lot hoping that the answers would come. The blank thoughts faded into detachment and as the stars littered the sky, the utter silence disturbed my very core. Disgusted I turned away in search for superficial light. Sanctity in an all night coffee shop, confessions for a dime. My coffee cup cradled in my palms, spinning, shifting, and watching the turmoil of the ocean inside. Feeling more attached to this puddle existence then the container that restrained it.
A plan, a plan, I needed a plan.
I was worried, and I was scared. It had been 5 weeks since my last period.
“It’s late, it’s just late”, I told myself. Cupping the hot coffee cup in my hands I thought about all the choices my own mother must have had to make.
I am 6 again stretched out on the rug, coloring. My mother in the kitchen, riffling through the cupboards. I hear the crinkle and folds, the clang of bottles. A low buzzing sound. The kitchen fan.
I get up and walk to my room.
A map. The map to my childhood home. Inside me I still run through the hallway. I close my eyes and hear the sound of the kitchen floor creak and bend as I move towards the door.
I vaguely remember my mother. Legs like tree stumps, thick, solid, rooted. But she was never upright. Bottle in hand, I never knew her. I knew to not speak in the mornings and not to hear in the nights.
My mistake was that I saw.
Next
