Bitterness

Anger can sometimes burst out of us like thunder rumbling in a

cold wind. We aren’t sure what caused the storm, but

there’s nothing we can do once it has begun. If only
he knew what he created: Murder, hate, war, misery,
the lows of life that cause pain. They do cause
emotion though, and painful emotions are better than
none at all. Sometimes pain opens our eyes, and forces
us to look around; to notice the good in things, and
not spit on those beneath us. Although nothing is
beneath us then, we are low beneath the ground. Even
the mice and cockroaches scurry above us as we reach
to breathe in the fresh air above. But life is full of
stale air that must be inhaled to live. Eventually we
are accustomed and make the best of it. The bricks
that form our houses soon become colored cardboard
that the children decorated with extravagant colors of
chalk and old crayons. The colors seep into our hearts
and warm them like the sun. Their smiles wake you up
at daylight and make life your favorite word. They run
around and play with the neighboring children. But one
day they come home, and don’t acknowledge you. They
slam their doors, and don’t tell you about their day.
You ask them what is wrong and they scream sarcasm as
sharp as needles. They fly all around, and you feel no
use in dodging them anymore. The pain can be bearable
for the moment. Tears pour out like a broken faucet,
and the plumber is out to lunch. Buckets cover the
floor to keep the salty damp emotions from damaging
the hardwood. But eventually the hardwood doesn’t make
much difference. There isn’t much that does anymore.

One day your children are no longer children. You
invite them and their cell phone to dinner, but they
end up talking to someone in Washington instead.
Questions get thrown around like “How is work?” trying
to talk of their interests to keep them in the same
room, on the same planet. But you see them start to
drift off into space, and you realize there is nothing
you can do anymore. You let them go off into worlds
unknown, and occasionally speak over the phone. You
live on for a few years in solitude. You’re watering
your plants outside one mildewed November, and you
feel a sharp pain. Maybe it’s all those years catching
up to you, you aren’t sure. But you fight it, and
struggle until you can’t feel yourself anymore. And
your legs give up on you and let you fall. Your eyes
throw themselves around, looking for any life
surrounding you. A last thought is left on the
blackness of your eyelids, the last time you saw them.
The only thing you wished was really there, the one
who didn’t give you a second thought. The only thing
that never could be a second thought in your mind.