your father is loud, what else is there to say? he is a man, nothing more, nothing less. you hear his voice carry up the stairs where it nestles between the two of you, growing and growing and digging sharp corners into your wrists until you have to seperate, transform into two normal people as he tells his mom about the new quentin tarantino flick.
why do teenagers head to the streets, forcing the respectable nine-to-fivers to gaze upon our foreheads, shiny with grease, and our clothes, awkward with love? it’s simple. your house is filling up inside with tense words and loud men, and complaints of headache until the walls are buckling and the windows threaten to break, and well, you, and by extension her, and just another mouth to feed and you feel bad for the burnt out bathroom light and the door that doesn’t close properly.
in the confines of your neighbourhood you are trying to float up into the sky. printed walmart blouses ask about your post-secondary plans and you dream of responding ‘i am going to the moon, i am going to bring a girl who doesn’t know where wyoming is but neither do i so it’s all okay’.
like a mantra you repeat to yourself, ‘soon we will be happy soon we will be happy soon we will be happy’ but it starts to escape into the cold november air and you didn’t bring a coat.
your name on her lips feels like a promise you can’t uphold. coming out of your father’s mouth, a promise he didn’t mean in the first place. and, well, your grandmother doesn’t say your name because between all the hereditary illnesses that make you quake in fear, she doesn’t really speak much anymore.
you wonder what they would say if they knew, and then you plunge your hand back in your jacket. sure, he likes bronski beat but it isn’t enough.
My Windows Look 