Saturday (CNF)

            "But she doesn't do anything!"

I pause the movie i'm watching, “Wait what did she say?” I walk up closer, rest my ear against the door. It was Regina, my older brothers girlfriend, talking with my dad.

            “She doesn’t help around the house, she doesn’t do what I tell her. All she does is stay in her room all day.” Regina says.

“Are you serious? Did she really just say that?” I thought as I listened closely. “She’s the one hat never comes out of her cave, only to criticize what we’re doing.”

            You’re not their mother, Regina” my dad responds, “you’re not supposed to be raising them, telling them what they can and can’t do.”

            “I’m not trying to raise them, Alex listens to me when I tell him to do something and he does it right away.”

            “He might listen to you, but he doesn’t listen to me and I’m his dad. He should be listening to me not you.”

“Ha! He’s finally confronting her!” I thought, a jumped back on my bed. I continued to watch the movie. My eyes started to get heavy, it was hard to keep them open, my head was falling back and I started to fall asleep. All of a sudden I heard it get quiet, “Are they really whispering?”

            “Why are you whispering? I don’t want to hide anything from Monica”

“Awwe!” I smiled when I heard him, “My daddy’s defending me.[:” it got quiet for a little bit and then the conversation started again.

            “The second she gets mad she locks herself in her room and no one can talk to her. And your exactly the same when you’re mad no one can say a word to you or else you’ll go off on them.”

            “Well you treat Monica and Alex differently.”

            “What?”

            “Yeah, Monica gets away with everything and Alex gets yelled at. You don’t punish them and that’s why they don’t change.”

             “Regina, I used to ground them but it doesn’t work, it doesn’t effect them. But they get things done their good kids and you can never treat kids the same. No matter how hard you try, its always going to be different and I don’t talk to Monica when she doesn’t do something and she listens to me.”

When my dad finished talking I could imagine Regina with her face tensed up, lips scrunched up and her arms crossed like a little angry kid.

            “When you have your own kids someday you’ll know what its really like.”

            “I don’t want kids”

“What a B****!” I thought, “How could she ever say that to my dad, she’s dating his son for Christ sakes!”

            “Well then I don’t know.”

            “I take care of my nephews, I’ve been with them since they were born.”

            “Its not the same, IF you ever have kids you find out what being a parent is really like.”

I hear a chair grind against the floor as someone gets up and leaves. Its silent from then on. “Well that must have been an intense conversation.” I sit on my bed and wait. Nothing happens. Everyone goes to their own rooms and no one comes out for the rest of the day.

Memories (CNF)

I wish I could say I’m one of those people with excellent memories, that remember each and every detail of everything they’ve seen or done. My memories are small, some insignificant, others important.

Like the day I felt my cheeks burn up, my arms go behind my back and I lowered my head, when I called my kindergarten teacher mom. I remember my stomach twist and twirl, my head spin and a burning thick liquid come up my throat. I remember walking into a 6^th graders classroom feeling uncomfortable and out of place when I was sent there to finish homework from the night before. I remember the confusion that crossed my face when I saw a puppy in my house, and the moment my godmother said he was for me, I jumped up and down with a huge smile across my face.

The day my world fell apart, like there was a hole in my chest burning through to the other side, but no tears would come the day my grandma died. The first day of high school seeing all new faces, just as confused and scared as me, walking past each other but ignoring the fact we’re all there. The moment of knowing you someone to talk to someone to trust someone to trust and the awkwardness of knowing you met them in a smelly sweaty locker room.

Or my favorite, the day I felt nothing could be better, nothing could go wrong again, the day I got the one thing that changed my family and the way I viewed the world, the day in walked into a strangers house and a young jolly little thing came up to me. And the moment the woman said do you want her? The day I got my Chiquita. Then the next year the most devastating, horrifying thing could happen. The moment I walked to the car after school got in and saw everyone crying. No one said a thing until we were far from school. I felt my heart stop, my world crash, my brain collapse. She was gone.

These are all my memories, my memories of the past, of what once was.

Eyes Wide Open

When you first look around you see the obvious, people writing because that was the assignment. What you dont see is the effort they put into it, if it really means something. Maybe the hot sun reminded someone of one the best days they've ever spent with family. It might take them back to a day they wished they could erase from their head. The grass, trees and warm breeze of a day they went to the lake with friends, camping or just sitting outside on the driveway. The silence of their surrounding calm and reasure them their in a safe place. Look past the obvious and into the depth.