Sliver of Light

Sweltering air sweeps across the city, encasing the concrete block house. Inside, you children bake like chocolate chip cookies made without love. Before now, a percussion of shrieks and swings rattled brains and wrenched the flesh from bones and tendons, leaving lily-livered eyes skittering in heads peeking from beneath sheets of surrender.

Now, those eyes skitter under lids, hiding from flies deceived into believing the living are dead. Flies dancing like butterflies; fluttering between parted lips and parted cheeks; flittering amongst curls of ruffled hair and rippled sheets restraining arms, and legs, and exposed bodies— weeping in fear.

You all are dogs, panting on a steel welded chain. You all leave the air humid, smelling of fruit-scented acetone and piss. You all are children, defeated and caged; all—except for you.

You rise in your bed, budding breasts bundled in your arms. You tell yourself: they will remain on the other side. They will remain in the room where the air conditioner blows so cold it numbs the rising red welts clothing your frame.

And, for a moment, you have the strength, the courage; to leave their dark departed eyes, the slapping licks from their blistering lips; to nakedly seek comfort from a darkness that comes when kindness and love are disconnected from a concept known as "unconditional;" to venture under your bed, to a new darkness that provides relief through a cold linoleum floor and a supporting wall, whose pitted holes grip your skin to sticky semi-gloss paint. Paint tasted by a tongue searching for a trickle of condensation to soothe your thirst for love and acceptance with a dash of dust and pigmented latex.

Instead, you find love and acceptance elsewhere. With your fingers, you trace the lines of each brick. Fingers feverishly climbing until they find the spine of a book wedged between the wall and the mattress. With a gentle tug, it is released: shining a sliver of light that dissipates your darkness.