SJ: Poems

Dec 2015 · 567

SJ Dec 2015

Darkness is what the young boy awakened to.

It surrounded him making his fear rise

He began to cry out for his mother.

Silence is the only answer he got.

'Where's mama?' The boy thought

He scrambled to get up from his makeshift bed.

On the floor in the kitchen of their Chicago apartment is where they slept.

Always slept in the kitchen because mama said the demons wouldn't get them in the kitchen.

The boy listened in the dark for any sounds to indicate where his mother might be.

Hearing a faucet running from the bathroom sink.

Finding his way out of the kitchen he got out into the hall to find the bathroom light was on.

As he got closer he could hear his mom mumbling. "Mama?" The boy started to open the cracked door wider.

"Stay away boy! Boy. My boy Alek. Away. Go away. Evil beings with daggers say go. Go away." His mother was shrieking again.

He didn't like when his mom got this way. It was happening more and more.

She use to take him out to the park. Out to get get food.

She hadn't taken the boy out in days. He'd been having to go out by himself.

Asking for food from one of the neighbors.

There were papers getting slid under the door daily that read eviction notice.

He kept bringing them to his mom but she kept tearing them up.

He was really scared this time as he gazed at his mama where she crouched in the corner of their small bathroom.

Both the bathtub faucet and the sink faucet were on full blast.

Her hands were over her ears as she muttered about things that the boy couldn't comprehend.

Feeling scared and uncertain the boy went back to the kitchen and got under the blankets.

Covering his head and ears. Trying to block out the sounds coming from the bathroom.

Eventually everything became silent.

The silence bothered the boy more than anything.

Shaking, he arose once again and made his way to the bathroom.

He could hear the water still running, but his mom had gone silent.

Fear settled around the boy like a old friend, making his trembling worse.

He knew something wasn't right.

Nothing ever was right.

But now he knew for certain that something bad had happend.

Dread hung heavy in the air as the boy stepped into the cramped bathroom, his feet wet with water.

That was the first thing the young boy saw. It was gushing out of the tub.

Out of the sink. Running out of the tiled bathroom floor to the hall.

He rushed over to the bathtub to try and turn the nozzle off like he had seen his mama do before.

His tiny hand slipped at first, not able to firmly grasp the nozzle.

Eventually he grasped it and turned it till the faucet gave one last gurgle and drip before finally shutting off.

Then he ran over to the sink where he saw his mom's shirt was stuffed into the drain.

Preventing the water from going down. He removed it before shutting off the sink.

His mama had done this before. She always said the dark man wants the water. He never knew what she meant.

Couldn't understand the dark man was in her mind.

That she was in desperate need of help.

But nobody around these parts got help when it came to mental illness. Not if you didn't have any family.

And the woman only had her young son.

Who was currently crying and screaming at what he had found.

His mom crouched over in the corner, not making a sound

Bloodied wrists. A razor blade lay near.

Sickening to think that maybe if someone cared she could've gotten help

But that was not the Fate of the woman who only had her son.

Instead she took an out, leaving the young boy with no one.

— The End —