Authors: Kelsey Sutton
For weeks and months
I'd heard snatches of conversations,
caught words like
recession
hard times
unpaid
until a short while later
we moved.
The new house
was so old
so small
so wilted
like a person marked by wrinkles,
withered by time and memories.
As we
hauled our life inside
in dented boxes,
I stood on the sidewalk
looking up at the place
I was expected to call home.
The windows
watched like eyes,
peering into my sadness and fear.
I tried to imagine
what kind of family
we would become inside those walls,
so much smaller and fewer
than in the house I'd always known.
“Why do we have to live here?” I'd asked.
“I don't want to move.”
My mother sighed,
knelt down in front of me,
touched my cheek.
“Because sometimes,” she said,
“people have to do things they don't want to do.”
Before I could ask her
what she meant,
Mom stood back up
and went inside.
Leaving me to wonder when
if ever
people get to do
what they actually want.
For so long
it was just the three of us.
Fain,
Dana,
Tyler.
Skinned knees,
missing teeth,
open roads.
Passing through the sunlit days
in blissful unawareness.
When my legs
couldn't keep up,
they waited
with expectant smiles.
When night fell
and I cowered from the darkness,
they were there
to guide the way.
It happened
so gradually,
I didn't see the changes
until it was too late.
My sister discovered
mirrors
phones
boys.
My brother found
sports
parties
girls.
I tried to follow them
to these new places,
and it shocked me
when I stumbled.
Before long
my siblings had run
so far ahead,
they disappeared from sight.
After that
I searched and waited
for someone else
to walk with me.
When she came along,
she wore ribbons
and smelled like sunscreen.
I didn't know
that Katie would be the last friend I'd have
without scales or yellow teeth.
In the summers
Katie's mother would take us to town
and buy us ice cream,
dripping treats that ruined our clothes
clung to our skin.
We licked our sticky fingers,
made forever vows.
In those days
forever felt like
such a sweet promise.
One day
I heard
the rumble of a truck.
When I went to the window
I saw my friend
with the ribbons and forever vows
climbing up, going away.
By the time
I ran outside
it was too late.
She was gone.
I stood there so long,
I felt myself fading
with the sun.
Katie had moved away
and it felt like
the end.
I didn't know that soon
the monsters would arrive
and everything was about
to begin.
At first I thought
the people in my life
were too busy
too distracted
to respond
to the sound of my voice.
Eventually I realized
that they didn't hear me
at all.
It started with my feet,
which slowly disappeared.
Then the rest
began to vanish,
my legs
my chest
my face.
Soon
no one could see me, either.
When I approached others
on the playground,
they looked right through.
When I spoke
to my family,
they didn't raise their gazes.
When my baby brother arrived,
my parents fought,
Dana and Tyler escaped.
All the while
I stood in a corner,
screaming at the top of my lungs.
At first being invisible
was terrifying
sad
lonely.
Shadows had teeth,
curtains had claws.
I lay in my rickety bed
listening to Dana's snores,
so loud they shook
the world.
Tears dripped onto my sheets
in tiny wet circles,
the only mark of sadness
that anyone could see.
Then one night
a voice hissed, “Don't cry.”
Luminous eyes
peered through my window,
but instead of fear,
I only felt wonder.
“What are you?” I asked,
my face drying.
“Friend,” the creature replied.
“Come with us.”
“Where?”
“To the sky!”
Hesitating,
I told him about the dangers
lurking in the dark.
I didn't know then
that my new friends
were confined to the night.
“But without the dark,” the little monster protested,
“you could not see the stars.”
So I followed him outside,
enjoyed our time so much
that I ached for those stars
when the morning came
and ate them.
First day of school,
a new year begins.
Now I turn away
from the sight of my sister
with all her friends,
pretend I don't care
that my classmates find me
strange and awkward.
They don't need to know
that in one brief moment
my hopes
of this year being different
have been dashed against their
uncaring faces.
Outside of our school
that combines every grade and age
I find refuge
beneath a courtyard tree,
focus on the friendly lines
of my notebook.
Getting As is easy;
it's everything else that's hard.
A butterfly lands on my hand,
distracting me from the paper,
and for a wild moment
I'm tempted to rip off its wings.
Humans are capable
of such ugliness.
The creature quivers in the breeze,
unaware that its fate
rests with me.
I stare and stare,
trace the intricate designs on its wings
with my eyes
until the urge passes.
For a few brief moments
I'm at peace.
Then,
without warning,
the butterfly launches itself off my skin
and into the clouds.
There was a time
when it felt as though
my own wings had been torn off.
I was seven years old,
too young to know about
the uncertainties of growing up.
We were playing a game,
my siblings and I,
trying to capture a flag
made of paper towels and sticks.
The sun was so bright
the sky so blue
the birds so euphoric
our hearts so light.
In a burst of ambition
I leapt toward the flag,
and my brother soared after me,
his arms wrapped around my legs.
We crashed
like a sputtering rocket,
two sounds shattering the air.
A crunch.
A scream.
When we landed
I knew something inside of me
had broken.
I remember the flash of pain,
a burning agony.
There were words filled with alarm
rushing engines and doors
white walls and strange smells
a man with a white coat and cool hands.
At the end of it all
my brother came to me,
laid his head in my lap,
drenched me with tears.
I patted his silken hair
with my good hand,
murmured words of comfort
while our family looked on.
That day I learned
what it is
to hurt
to love
to forgive.
It is a lesson
I have learned
every day since.
I didn't always dread going home.
But when my family
began to collapse
I learned to stay away,
avoid getting trapped
beneath all the debris.
I discovered it on a Tuesday,
a place of comfort
I didn't know I was looking for.
I walked
with my head down,
counting cracks
in the sidewalk
when I noticed the trickle.
It led me
away from the road,
through the trees
to the other side.
The quarry
was gray and kind,
still and quiet;
no deaf ears
or unseeing eyes.
I sat on the hard ground,
pulled out my notebook,
and wrote
of triumph
wonder
beauty.
Stories that are
so vivid
so real
I could live inside them.
Water lapped against the rocks,
rising and climbing,
trying to escape,
wanting so badly
to be part of something else.
It always fails.
“I know how you feel,” I said
to the river that day.
The only reply
was the struggling water,
and that felt
like answer enough.
On the way home from school,
I stop in front of a wide store window,
plumes of breath
swirling from my mouth.
There's an envelope in my hands
containing birthday money
I've been saving
to buy new notebooks.
Passersby
probably think I can't decide
among the shoes on display.
They're right,
but they're wrong, too.
They don't know
that when I helped Peter
put on his shoes this morning,
a toe peeked out at me
through the worn cloth.
I know that Mom and Dad
won't have time to notice,
can't give us what we need.
The money in my hands
could keep my brother warm
or take me to whatever world
I dream up.
Finally I go inside;
a bell over the door
announces my entrance.
“Can I help you?” an employee asks.
His long sideburns
look like wool.
I think of shoes
of writing
of choices
of dreams.
Then
I take a breath
and smile.
“I'm looking for a pair of shoes.”
At home,
I show my brother
his new shoes.
He tries them on,
but his interest
is elsewhere.
“Will you build a house with me?”
little Peter asks.
I look down at him,
at the red and yellow building blocks he holds.
Through the closed bedroom door,
I can hear our mother.
She muffles her sobs,
sounds of regret
that we have heard
many times before.
Dana and Tyler have vanished,
become fuzzy and transparent
as they so often do
when I need them most.
I kneel in front of my brother.
“We won't just build a house,” I tell him.
“We'll build a whole city.”
He smiles.
My mother keeps crying.
Next door
there is another family.
Sometimes
when the sun touches the horizon
I creep through our yards
and watch them through the window.
They eat their perfect dinner
wearing perfect smiles,
filling the stillness
with their perfect words
and unbridled laughter.
Sometimes I stand in full view,
right in front of the glass,
part of me hoping
part of me fearing
that they will look up and see me.
They never do.
In the room we share,
filled with my sister's posters
and discarded clothes,
there is one thing I despise the most.
The night-light
shaped like a shell.
I wish
I could throw it back
into the ocean.
Dana has always feared the dark
and all that it brings.
There was a time
our mutual wariness
drew us together.
But that was before.
My sister doesn't understand
that without the darkness
we couldn't see the stars.
Every night
as I'm lying in bed
waiting for taps at the window,
the world narrows down
to a smattering of sounds.
A fan whirring
in my parents' room.
My sister snoring
in the next bed.
A clock ticking
in the hallway.
As I listen
I become a part of it all,
a gust of air
a hitched breath
a single moment.
I am suspended,
hovering above everything
on top of the world
too big and brave to fall.
So by the time
the magic comes
I've already created
some of my own.