I can still feel...

I can still feel my first tangible memory of guilt and sorrow as if I wear it as a brand. I see it always when I close my eyes. I see it in others when I open them, this memory, barely faded after so much time. I must have been 1 year or less. I have colors, thick red and green crayons kept haphazardly, for I know not order, yet. No one has taught me to line and keep these crayons in their box--but I know they are special. My mum set them apart as mine, we are poor, I have 3 older sisters. They belong only to me, the favorite, me, the undeserving, the born last, without reason. Bernie must have been 4, maybe a few months older. She is older, but worse. I know this because she wets the bed and makes mum angry. Mum is right because she is all I know. I don't remember my father. I don't remember my sisters well. My crayons lie broken into bits, my new, special crayons. I cannot color with small bits of crayon, though I try. I show my mother the broken crayons, unfixable. I cannot picture her face, but I can feel and taste her anger filling the room. My stomach sinks, my eyes well, and I watch her drag Bernie to the crayons, a puppy's mess on the carpet, she rubs her nose in it so she may see the mess and feel ashamed. Anger seeps into her hands as she moves to the living room, dragging Bernie behind, and throws her at the wall. She hits then falls like a rag doll, unreal. I cannot hear words of anger, just my consequences. Bright colors, mine and separate--like me. I, untouchable utilities. Bernie did not break me, she melted me into the stiff carpet.

I walk on many carpets, shaggy and orange, gray with time, tan and short, thick brown--they all smell the same. I lay my cheek to them, not looking upward, but straight across the fibers. If I lay on grass, I don this perspective also. I, a pensive creature, listen for the ocean in shells and wonder who shared this carpet. Did they slink away to a new, not-home? Why did we move into an uninhabitable, transitive place with musty carpets and stiff, waxy, yellowed lace curtains on bent rods? The floor bows under one such carpet, brown. This carpet feels the same, itchy on my cheek. Before my Dad left when I was 5, we stacked all our blankets into a pile, sleeping bags too, on our couch and recliner in the living room. This room has the old TV and connects to the linoleum of the kitchen. The chairs next to the tin table squeak and screech when moved. The countertop has cracked through use. Some person did not use a cutting board here, why would they? Our cups are textured, thick plastic in earth tones, 70s colors, puke orange, olive green, chocolate brown. I slept for a few days on the stacked bedding; I must not have known it's bleak future. He didn't say goodbye, he just loaded the bedding and everyone but me into a van and drove away. I watched them leave from the window.