Read Online Melt by Selene Castrovilla - Free Book Online Page A

hopeless.
    We’re kissing
    I’m hoping
    and the room turns slow
    all them paintings swirl around us
    they
    take
    us
    in.
    We’re gliding through them lily pads
    swimming we swim we’re breathing
    underwater
    we blend we mix we melt right into them whirling bursts of colors where everything’s
    connected where everything belongs where everything’s
    right.
    The world’s so right
    finally
    it all makes sense
    but then
    I
    quit.
    I quit I quit I
    quit kissing her I
    push
    her
    away I let her float back to the surface.
    It ain’t right
    swimming with her
    using her to
    breathe
    like that.
    I can’t I can’t I
    can’t take the chance of dragging her down to the murk with me.
    She don’t belong at the bottom
    of the pond she don’t belong
    here
    in my kitchen.
    I can’t let her be
    here
    even just in my mind she might get muddy.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Warren’s scared he blinks blinks
    blinks his
    big
    brown
    eyes
    he forces slow spoonfuls he stares at
    fruit.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Me
    I’m waiting to wake up.
    I been waiting to
    wake
    up
    from this nightmare years too long now. It’s getting harder and
    harder to fool myself it’s real tough playing
    â€œpretend
    you
    don’t
    see.”
    Â Â Â Â Â Â His bacon’s
    sizzling
    on the stove his eggs are
    whisked
    in a bowl
    waiting
    to be poured on the
    griddle his coffee is drip
    drip
    dripping
    its last drops
    into the pot his orange juice is
    freshly
    squeezed with
    pulp
    strained.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â His face is beet-colored he’s all up in her face she’s backed against the counter
    nowhere to go and it
    won’t
    be
    long
    now.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â I wanna wake up
    in a normal family where my
    pop
    kisses my mom good morning and reads Newsday at the table, where my
    pop
    never raises his voice let alone his hands, where my
    pop
    loves his family, where my
    pop
    loves me.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â For seventeen goddamn years I been waiting for my pop to love me how stupid is
    that?       
    Â Â Â Â Â Â In a desperate attempt to either
    escape
    or
    give
    up
    my mind floats back years and years to
    another
    morning.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Me and Jimmy
    playing on the living room floor with
    Lincoln
    Logs.
    Mom’s eye is purply-
    blue it’s half-closed. Her lip’s
    scabbed
    blood around the
    crusty
    edges and
    puffy it’s all puffy from what
    he did
    last night.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Pop tells her to make him breakfast.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â She says,
    Make your own
    breakfast.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Pop
    says
    nothing. He’s
    red. His face is bright
    red
    like a Fireball candy. Hate’s
    dripping
    from his skin like
    sweat I can smell it.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â He lifts up the
    love seat.
    It’s brown like the coffee she
    brews for him everyday
    but not
    today
    it looks like the coffee when she stirs in cream
    it’s creamy brown.
    He holds the
    love seat
    high
    he grips it tight so
    tight
    the veins in his hand bulge
    thick
    and
    blue.
    He slams it
    bam
    he
    bashes the
    creamy
    brown
    love seat
    down
    down
    down
    on Mom’s back. She screams she
    howls
    like a dog like
    an
    animal
    that don’t know how to
    mask its
    pain.
    She falls she
    falls
    she
    falls
    arms up like she’s
    surrendering
    hair slapping at her
    face
    white apron strings flap
    flap
    flapping. The floor rumbles it rocks it
    shakes
    when she hits
    bottom
    bent and
    broken.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Her eyes are shut.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Round logs
    topple they
    spill they
    roll
    they
    scatter.
    Some hit the wall.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Mom quivers like she’s
    cold like she’s freezing she
    shakes. She looks whole but she’s
    broken.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Her eyes are shut.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Me and Jimmy’s log house is broken like
    Mom
    but it’s in pieces you can