Screaming rings out through the glass panes
of the house across the street.
And it sounds just like them.
The nights she spent screaming about
the mistresses
and the nightmare she felt was her life.
Before he would leave.
He always left.
Well, mostly.
Some nights she would come into our rooms,
****** us out of our tossings and turnings
and run.
But only one of us.
She only ever took one of us.
And we would drive the twenty minute ride
to Martha's house,
where I,
or he,
would pretend to sleep on the couch,
while she drank,
and commiserated,
about how he didn't try.
And he didn't care.
How the **** from the emails,
didn't care that she was destroying a family,
or a life.
Or whatever the ****,
she thought she was fighting for.
But mostly,
most nights,
it was him leaving.
It was the sound of the door slamming,
and the engine of his '93 Volvo starting up
in our dirt driveway
as he disappeared into the night.
And I never understood.
I never understood why he left,
every time.
That is,
until the day came,
when I, myself, started leaving.