On The Curb

The smell of gasoline fills my nose as cars race past me, none stopping to console me and my fears. Abandonment is all I feel, the fear of possibility creeping in. Our neighbours have just mowed their lawn, and the sour scent of the fresh blades overthrows my senses as I wait. What am I waiting for? Someone to stop as they scuff by on the pavement in their “fancy attire”, trying to conceal their true upbringing? Trying to flee from their past? Hands running through my sweat slicked hair as the sun beams against my back. Frustration over takes me, I know what has and will happen.




Why am I still sitting here, listening to the lives of those who currently feel alive? Like my whole world hasn’t just crumbled right under their noses? As if life is a beautiful thing that should be celebrated? My emotions control me, and I don’t have the strength to fight back. Urging to lash out, and shout at them, and tell them that what happened here isn’t something to push past as if it was nothing. Situations like this affect this community far too often. My whole body, engulfed in paralysis, as I sit on the curb. The presence of the rugged cement beneath me, digging into my tailbone more and more with each passing second. When will it end? If it ever does, this numbness, emotion, all becoming who I am in this moment. It is as if I have been injected with temporary anesthesia, only I feel nothing, and everything, at the same time. Should I turn back? Back to that fluorescently lit place where I swore I would never return? To the one who once led me to believe held the whole world upon their shoulders?




This mid-summer heat is becoming too much to handle, but still I remain under its rays. That man of whom once possessed the entire globe, has now smashed it upon myself. How could this happen? How could this happen to me? To us? We were always good people, or so we thought. Never absent from church on Sundays, and remained involved in community activities, if only he would’ve listened. It didn’t have to end like this, he didn’t have to give into those malevolent demons. And now? Just another statistic of teens who grew up in the suburbs. How this ends is undeniable, I will walk into that room, tinged with guilt and grief, and what will I see? The hollow shell of the boy that previously possessed eyes that gleamed, full of ideas, plans, aspirations, the one I used to know, the one who I once called my best friend.




It seems like ages ago. Before the accident, the blood, the drugs… All things that have destroyed our lives. Why couldn’t he listen? Him, the boy with plans, the one who always had problems against authority. Where did that get him? No where but attached to hundreds of machines, tubes fishing in and out from underneath his gown, attempting to savor what little life he has left in him. This fact causes me to use every ounce of motive in my body to restrain from screaming. I wrap my hands through my hair once again, caving in on myself, trying to gain even a little control. My shoulders shudder with the effort.


In the end, I give up, alone now. With quivering hands, this is probably best for us all. Cars have neglected the street, and families have returned to their own shreds of perfection. I succumb to my emotions, and allow myself to go temporarily insane. Watching my shadow as it shifts positions every so often, I hope. That is all I can do at this moment, that and pull myself back together, piece by piece, until I can ever so slightly call myself whole once again.