Midnight drabbles

Suburbia

trigger warning: swearing, abuse, alcoholism

When I was two my brother was born. When I was ten I walked in on my older sister with blood running from her pale wrists, chest missing the comforting heartbeat. When I was eleven my life turned upside down, my parents couldn't get their shit together and left me to look after my younger brother. When you look at our town you would never think twice about it, you could never imagine the nightmares that happen beyond the perfect bushes and expensive cars. When people visit they immediately admire the fancy cars and people who seem like they have their life together. When I was twelve I held my best friends hand as we stood outside a strangers house with smoke filling the air around us and the crushing feeling of loss all around us. We didn't know who lived there, we didn't even know if anyone was in there. The once shining white house was reduced to nothing but a pile of ash and tears cried by us.

I don't remember much from my childhood summers apart from the fact that they were full of gap teeth smiles and watermelon stained shirts. That soon was pushed to the back of my mind as I grew learning that there is no such thing as 'perfect'. My life went down from there when I was thirteen my father turned to alcohol, he turned into a monster. I never saw him the same after the day I walked in on him screaming at my mother with how useless she is, I never saw him the same after he saw me and pointedly hit her harder to scare me. I was thirteen when two girls went without eating for the whole summer, I was thirteen we I saw eleven year old girls in miniskirts because that what their mothers claimed 'was the becoming of a lady', I was thirteen when I realised suburbia wasn't all it was made out to be. I was thirteen when I realised the houses were set far enough so no one could hear my father screaming and no one could hear my mother crying. I was thirteen when I realised I was in charge of my eleven year old brother because my mother was to busy working and my father to busy drinking. When I was fourteen I thought my life was looking up my father had stopped drinking and my mothers bruises slowly started to get less and less.

When I was fifteen I learnt that my family wasn't the only one which was fucked up. I learnt the star football player had a poetic side but his mother only had time for one side of him, the side which got her popular here. I learnt the track star had a sister who was pushed behind the affairs which her mother told her to keep her mouth shut about and her fathers sad eyes when he realised that he wasn't the only one who had slept with his wife. I learnt the girl who had the perfect smile cried silently in her room. I learnt that a boy wanted to escape the title of 'our little princess'. I learnt the girl with the Toyota never comes back at a reasonable hour, I wonder where she's going, I wonder what she's running from. I learnt that the fake smiles and clean cut grass comes at a price. I learnt that nothing is ever as it seems.

Every year on the fourth of July we come together in this fake neighbourhood to admire the fireworks. Each person having a different story to tell. Each person here will either be going back to hell or heaven and for me I can't tell the difference anymore.