2
Weak powerless – perfect circle
Allie
Allie stood back to indulge in her work. There wasn't a better feeling in the world, than laboring tirelessly on a single piece of art and waiting for that moment when it comes to an end, and you know that there is nothing you can add. To some people her art was just a mass of shapes, lines and color. But to her they were all stories, of pain and suffering, of love and happiness. There was no question about it; it was the best feeling in the world. She looked at it and felt all the pain from the past couple of days falling away from her like a layer of her was falling to the basement floor of her house. But it only lasted a moment. She was slapped back into reality when the song on the radio ended and the silence was broken by the screams of her mother upstairs. And the sound of furniture getting shoved out of place, or that could have been the sound of her mothers body, she could never tell anymore. And she had learned over time that not making the distinction helped her not feel her mothers' pain. She tried to convince herself that her mother had brought this on herself, marrying some drunken b****** who couldn't make ends meet, she had long ceased trying to help her. The last time she tried all she had achieved was a purple bruise the size of a man’s large fist on her left eye, and her mother later staring needles at her and telling her it was her own fault. It was times like this when she missed her father, she looked at the old stool at the corner of the dark room, the one he used to sit on and silently watch her paint. She didn't realize she was crying until she tasted the tears running down her cheeks and the taut skin on her cheeks because of the salt . She was no longer at peace, the high of finishing her piece of art faded away just as any drug would. She turned to face the painting and swung her arms to roughly slam it onto the basement floor, watching emotionlessly as a jagged tear ripped the canvas roughly in half, she picked up the nearest bucket of paint and soiled it all over both halves, and watched as the paint dried to the rust dark color of blood. Breathing heavily and spattered with dark paint she sank to the ground and cried. She heaved in ragged breaths that threatened to drown her any moment, she felt te air around her thin until she felt like she couldn’t breathe it in anymore. She no longer knew if it was day or night. She no longer knew if she was alive or dead, and she no longer cared.

What could have been hours later she slowly gathered herself and stood up, taking one last look at the torture painting, turned away and made her way up the creaky wooden stairs. When she reached the top she put her hand on the door knob not quite sure what to do next. She lamely stood there fighting the temptation to turn away, she knew she would have to walk through the threshold from comfort to the battle zone but she was hoping to delay the moment a bit. Giving in, she opened the door and walked tentatively into the kitchen following the sound of familiar tired sobs. She went and sat next to the shriveled figure of what had once been an open woman, a ready smile always playing on her small lips. But she was no longer the person she had grown up with, she was a broken woman. A woman who had lost hope. she had an idea of why her mother remarried so soon after her fathers death, unused to being alone she fell for the wily charms of a man who seemed worthy, a family man, a potential partner for the rest of her lonesome life, someone who could dull the pain left by her late husband. She was wrong. Allie wished she could say something to make it better, but she couldn’t. She simply kissed her on her clammy forehead, laid a hand on her head and whispered sweet nothings to her. She loved her, and it hurt to know that her fathers' death had affected her mother in ways that completely transformed her as a person. Her father was gone and when he left he took the woman her mother was with him and left behind her shadow. He succumbed to lung cancer, her mother succumbed to grief. When she lost her husband, her mother had lost her heart.

Allie stood up and clambered up the stairs to her room, shutting the door behind her, she closed her eyes tightly as she heard Ron, her stepfather, leaving to indulge in his usual. She knew how he would be when he came back, what would happen, and she didn’t want to be here for that routine. Thinking about the last few days she realized that her life was a big mass of disappointment after disappointment, who knew what would happen next. She drowned herself in thoughts of Ron, her stepfather, at his worst. What am I going to do? Who am I to anyone? What if I die, who's gonna' care? I need a way out. Mom doesn’t even see me anymore, she looks but she doesn't see, she won't notice, maybe there is a heaven; maybe I'll be with dad. And she knew what she had to do.