Walking on Glass
Page 1
Walking on Glass
Alma Fullerton
For Jessica,
Chantale,
and Claude
for always being there
when I need them. Love you.
Contents
A Personal Journal
Just to Let You Know
Journals
This is Stupid
Besides
Jack
Me and Jack
My Shrink
The Way She Was
This Is How It Is
Please Understand
Honestly
Roses
All Good Things Gone
If the Shoe Fits
In the Car
At Home
Another Kid’s Shoes
Downtown
Visiting Mom
Just Do It
Maybe
A Party
The New Girl
Am I?
Just Because
Anxiety Attacks
Alissa’s Song
What’s Wrong With Me?
After School
Jack and Me
Nurses
Walking on Broken Glass
Alissa
Homework
Money
The Conversation
Talking
If I Could Go Back
The House
The Date
After My Date
I’m Sorry
Mothers
Thinking Back
Normal Days
Spirit Scents
My Arm
Hard Core
Sleepless
Alissa Meets Mom
Stolen Souls
That Kid
Wrinkles
Identity
Seventeen
Relief
God, Forgive Me
Is She There?
In Science
Jack’s Mother
Mom’s Room
Questions
Avoiding Alissa
Breaking Away
Hidden From View
Dad
Alissa Asks
Conversations With Dad
In the Hallway
Forgiveness
On the Way to School
Mirrors
I Should Have
Waiting for Death
The Penalty
Opinion
Murder
Thinking
I Wish I May
Closing Doors
First Signs of Life
Maybe He Knows
Dad’s Feelings
Flashbacks
Depression
Gangs
Could Have Been
Surely It’s Different
Mom’s Roses
My Dream
What Happened
Remembering Mom
Covering Mom’s Roses
This Is Not a Life
This Has to be Right
Mom’s Birthday
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
A PERSONAL JOURNAL
Date of journal—
between the start and finish
JUST TO LET YOU KNOW
I begin this
under protest.
The further you read,
the more you invade my mind.
Take something from me
I don’t want to give.
My thoughts.
You will enter a place
I don’t want to be.
My conscience.
JOURNALS
Writing a journal
for some shrink
won’t make me
feel better.
It won’t change
what happened.
It’ll just make me think,
and I don’t want to think.
Mom thought too much.
Look where it got her.
THIS IS STUPID
Shit happens.
We have to
deal with it.
We can’t
change it.
Why pick it apart
like a detective
dissects a suicide note.
BESIDES
Only girls
and wusses
write journals.
If Jack finds out
I’m writing one,
he’ll hassle me so much
I’ll have to beat the crap out of him
just to prove
I’m no wuss.
JACK
I know Mom hates him.
He hangs around
with the King’s Crypt
and shows up
at our house
wasted.
But I don’t care.
Jack has always been
my best friend.
He knows how
to have a good time.
ME AND JACK
Jack pulls up in a kick-ass
Mustang convertible.
He whoops as he gets out
and grins. “Not bad, hey?”
“Damn right,” I say,
wishing I had the cash
to buy a car
like that.
“Come on,” he says.
I jump in and we head downtown.
We pass some girls we’ve seen
at some parties,
so he turns around
and pulls up beside them.
“Want a ride?” he asks.
They jump in.
We speed through the streets,
blasting the music
and flipping off people who glare.
And for a while
I forget all about Mom.
MY SHRINK
I slouch in a chair
across from Dr. Mac.
He takes my journal
and flips through it
without reading,
like he promised.
“I’m glad you’re writing.”
He hands it back.
“How’s your mother?”
I spin my chair, lean back,
and put my feet up on his desk.
“Same.”
He nods, waiting for me to say more.
I don’t, making him ask,
“How are you?”
I shrug. “Same.”
THE WAY SHE WAS
I took the photograph
from the mirror in my mother’s room.
Her at the age of eight,
perched high in a tree,
arms stretched out like
an untamed eagle,
prepared to take on
the world.
I keep the picture
in my pocket
so I’ll always
remember
the way she was
before she was caged
by a baby
she never wanted.
THIS IS HOW IT IS
Dad says,
“Come and see Mom.”
So I do.
Mom,
tucked tight in the bed,
empty minded.
No longer herself,
or anyone else.
Wires force life into a body
left hanging
like a marionette
with no one to pull
the strings.
Dad leans close to her
and whispers,
“You’ll come home soon, dear.
Everything will be better.”
I know he really
wants that
to be true,
but the thought of her
comi
ng back
into our lives
makes my insides
flip.
PLEASE UNDERSTAND
Mom’s mood swings
always coincided
with whatever
Dad and I did.
Up and down.
Up and down.
Pulling our strings,
like big yo-yos.
And even now,
when she can’t move
or talk,
she’s still pulling
those strings.
HONESTLY
I don’t want her to die.
I just want
it all to
stop.
Does that make me
so terrible?
ROSES
Mom loved
her roses.
They grew into
prizewinners,
nurtured by her long hours
and tender hands.
They brought her
a sense of fulfillment.
I just let her
down.
ALL GOOD THINGS GONE
I wait outside
on the step for Jack.
Vines tangle
around Mom’s roses
like bad times.
I yank at the weeds
and chuck them far
from the garden,
yelling, “Get Out!”
The nosy neighbor,
Mrs. Wingert,
peeks around her curtains.
She glares at me,
like she thinks
I’ve gone over the edge.
Maybe
I have.
I throw a handful of dirt
in her direction and scream,
“Mind your own damn business.”
She drops her curtain closed,
but I can still feel her eyes
on the back of my head.
By the time Jack arrives,
weeds are scattered over the yard,
my hands are caked with mud,
and I have a headache
from clenching my teeth together
so tight.
IF THE SHOE FITS
Jack pulls into a
parking space near the lake.
He taps my chest and points to
a scrawny kid sprawled
across a bench reading.
“Want to have some fun?” he
whispers.
“Oh yeah,” I go.
He struts over to the kid
and kicks his foot.
“Nice shoes.
Your mom buy them for you?”
The kid jumps to his feet
and glances around,
but the rest of the park
is deserted.
“I asked, did your
mom pay for them?”
Jack barks.
“I—I guess so.”
The kid clutches his book
to his chest.
Jack shoves him down.
“I want them shoes.”
“I d-don’t have another pair.”
“You hear that?” Jack says.
“He d-don’t have another pair.”
My laughter mixes with Jack’s,
and he plows the kid in the face.
The kid covers his nose
as his blood gushes
through his fingers.
Jack turns to leave,
but that kid is staring at me
over his bloody fingers,
and I stand frozen.
I wish that kid would
stop.
But he doesn’t.
He stares
like he knows
what my mother did.
He stares
like he knows
why she did it.
He stares,
like he’s expecting me to be nice.
He just keeps staring.
I shift my feet
and look away.
But I can feel him
staring
with eyes the color of
Mom’s.
Staring.
“Stop gawking,
you freak!” I say.
But he doesn’t.
“Stop looking at me!”
I shove him hard against the bench.
The kid’s head snaps back,
like someone pulled an elastic
attached to it.
Jack turns around.
He pounds the kid
across the chin.
The kid falls onto the grass,
bawling
and gripping the sides of his face.
Things slow down in my head.
A movie,
paused,
scene by scene,
as Jack stands over him,
kicking at his ribs,
without giving in.
All because I didn’t like the kid
staring.
The look in Jack’s eyes
scares me
because I know
the kid has had enough,
and no matter what I do,
Jack won’t stop.
“Loser!” Jack rips off the kid’s shoes.
He leaves him lying on the ground
bleeding.
He trots to his car,
carrying the shoes
over his head like a trophy.
I see the kid stagger to his
sock feet.
He wipes the blood
from under his nose.
That kid has to go home
and tell his mother
two guys beat him up
and stole his shoes.
And I want to puke.
IN THE CAR
Jack says, “What a riot.”
I stare out the window,
not answering.
“You want the shoes?” he asks.
“No.”
“You should take them.
Your shoes suck.
They keep falling off,” he says.
“Mom bought me these shoes.”
I look straight at him,
daring him to say something.
But he doesn’t.
He just shrugs
and throws the shoes
on the backseat.
AT HOME
I curl up on my bed,
clutching my pillow.
Trickles of sweat
drip down the sides of my face.
I shiver.
My chest is locked
like an iron cage.
I gasp for air,
but the cage just
tightens.
Every time
I close my eyes,
I see blood
gushing from that kid’s nose,
spilling onto his shoes,
and me laughing,
like some kind of an animal.
I grip the pillow tighter.
The cage grips me
hard enough to make
my heart pop.
I sob,
wishing my mother
was home
to open
the iron bars.
But she chose
not to be.
ANOTHER KID’S SHOES
That kid’s shoes
are still in the back of Jack’s car
untouched.
DOWNTOWN
There’s a mural
painted on the side of
Mulier’s Grocery.
An eagle.
Flying free.
Jack and I shake cans of paint
and spray lines through the eagle.
I step back, and it looks like a cage.
At home,
I stare at the ceiling,
thinking about Mom’s photo.
The word caged