B R E A T H E

c h e r r y

She said to me, "Listen here you little shit, stop quoting Plath and  Bukowski and other dead assholes to me."

"I'm sick of it. I can puke worms.
That's how sick I am of your pretentious bullshit."

I stared at her.

She slapped me right across my right cheek and left a nice little handprint. Red & hot. Like the fire she had started hours ago that was turning my books to ashes.

The smoke swirled around us like a haunting dream.

"You think you're better than me, huh?" She spat, disgusting gray spit that I'd have to wipe later.

"Just because you can read Dickens and Dovesky?"

"Dostoevsky" I whispered.

Smack. Another print. Same cheek.

I didn't complain though. I like it when things are even.

It's a compulsion I haven't been able to shake off over the years.

"You think you're some hotshit huh?
I can read too."

She can't.

I didn't say it out loud.

Third time's not the charm.
Not for me.

She got up, pulled an old half smoked cigarette from her pocket, walked over to the fire & lit it up.

The embers painted her face with a cherry glow, almost making it look as if she was blushing.

She could've been beautiful. It was a pity she was a crackhead.

"Now, tell me something, little shit, do you hate me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you never taught me how to hate someone."

"Damn right, I didn't. There's better things to learn anyway."

I glanced outside the window that had more cracks than glass, to the alley with broken streetlights that flashed in the dead of the night, always making me think that a thunderstorm was about to strike us.

It was strange but I really wanted to get hit by lightning at least once in my life.

I wondered if it'd leave a mark like everything else in my life.

Like my fathers footsteps outside our apartment building.

He stepped in wet  cement once & the contractors who built it, they never bothered to fill it again.

My mother never filled up her heart with love again either.

Not even for me.

Maybe because I reminded her too much of him.

I've his eyes, his hair, hell, even his face.

I wonder how it felt like to see the face of your abuser every second of everyday, knowing you couldn't rip it off and put on a different one.

One you'd hate less.

Maybe even like sometimes.

I lied to her before. I didn't hate her because I didn't know how to.

I didn't hate her because she hated herself enough for the both of us.

"Come on, lets go get some groceries."

We don't have any money, I wanted to say.

I'd really hate for her to slap me three times in a row.

Three isn't an even number. Three is odd. So, I didn't.

That day she taught me how to shoplift. Then blew a man in the parking lot.
Even kissed me on my cheek hastily.

I'm telling you this story because you asked me why I didn't love you last night.

I hope you understand now that my mother taught me a lot of things but loving someone was not one of them.