sleep

All during the time I live in the matchbox house, I'm afraid to sleep by myself. Or at least from age four to fourteen. i can fall asleep in my bed as long as someone is awake in the house. Usually my father stays up to watch the ten o'clock news. And maybe my sister stays up writing in her diary. That's before she moved out. But I always wake up in the middle of the night, scared to close my eyes for too long. Or even worse-I don't fall asleep at all. I'm dreading the night as the TV is turned off and everything gets dark. Sometimes I pretend I'm sick so that my father will let me sleep in his bed. Having a sore throat works for a while, but one night he's just not having. There I am next to his bed telling him that I have a sore throat but really meaning that I need to get in your bed if I'm going to get any sleep. But tonight he doesn't understand, he thinks I've really got a sore throat and that it needs to be treated. Into the kitchen we go, bright lights, looking down my throat, yelling. Is there a flashlight involved? He has a stash of antibiotic samples because his boss's brother is doctor and because he's paranoid. He wants to give me an antibiotic for my sore throat. I don't want to take the antibiotic and then I'm crying. I just want to go to sleep. I won't take the antibiotic which means I'm lying about the sore throat which means I have to go back to my bed. For now anyway, maybe I can sneak back into his bed without him noticing. Fuck antibiotics, give me a sleeping pill! Maybe it's hereditary. My Mom was like that when she was a child and my uncle too. Now I can't sleep any other way than alone.

scrap metal

reading sarah schulman's work makes me think about my relationship with my mother. and then i get angry when i'm thinking about my mother. i go into a rage, really, thinking about all the things i could say to her but never do. all the things that would put her in bed for two weeks straight with guilt and sadness. like your life totally excludes me but yet you imply that you want me in your life, but then i'm the one who has to make the effort to be in your life. why do i have to make the effort? why do i have to travel to you when i have no money and you live in a place that makes me uncomfortable, surrounded by people who make me uncomfortable? when i visit, it's like i haven't changed at all. especially when the others are around like step-dad and uncles and cousins. i'm still the silent, sad, mute. god they make me so uncomfortable, but they're so comfortable. they've never questioned themselves and i'm sure they have no idea that i hate them or that i would have any reason, too. part of me wants to go visit. in some ways, i'm most comfortable around my mom and my sister, but only when the others aren't around. and my mom and my sister are so into the others. they're successful and fun and normal and totally fucked up. like scary TV fucked up. plastic, superficial, god-friendly, racist, suburban, hillbilly, redneck, all that bad stuff. my sister tells my niece that i'm weird and then my niece repeats it like a mantra to me the whole time i visit. i say if you're normal honey, count me out. she doesn't get it. sometimes i think if i did actually speak around the others, portraying some sense of my true self they would think i was really crazy. i can't imagine them getting my humor or simply understanding anything that i say. mouths would be agape. but maybe i'm wrong. how would it be if i was just myself the whole time, all the time. they might think i'm crazy but i would be happier.