My thoughts take the shape of a crystal wine glass.

Every time my friends give me that pitying stare when they think I’m not looking, it’s another drop.
Every time I pass by my neighbor’s little blue house and I hear their scornful remarks, it’s another drop.
Every time my mother uncorks another shimmering bottle with her wine-red nails, it’s another drop.

Everything around me makes my emotions get closer to the rim of that crystal wine glass.
Sometimes, I’m afraid it’s going to tip over the rim and spill over, but my thoughts always settle, and I’m stagnant again, like a fish splashing in the pond, making ripples until its back to the way it was.

This morning, I wake up to peeling wallpaper dotted with purple wildflowers and the sound of glass shattering. It’s mother again.

Drip-drop

“Just a little more.”

I see her again in the kitchen, tossing back a large, silvery bottle, not even bothering with a glass this time. Her eyes are redder than usual, a tell-tale sign that she’s been crying again. When she removes the mouth of the bottle from her chapped, dry, lips and lowers her head, her thinning hair falls over her face and I don’t even remember when the last time she took a shower was. She slurs out an almost incoherent “Good morning” as I pass by, and I kiss her wrinkled cheek.

My foot meets cracked cobblestone and I see my neighbor’s houses lined up in their usual pattern.

White, blue, gray, white, again.

I shove my fingers into the pockets of my worn-out pants, fraying at the ends and I drop my head to watch the edges of the perfectly trimmed grass as I amble along the uneven sidewalk. Two women sit on their patio, drinking tea from a china tea set with pink roses printed on the edges. One has a barrage of black ringlets covering the top of her head, and shrewd green eyes, squinting down on me with her pale, worn face.

“Isn’t that the child of-“
“It is, ain’t it?”
“-that man-“

I quicken my pace and block out the extra sounds and focus on the tapping of my shoes hitting the dirty cement. But I still somehow hear the lady’s next words.

“-who killed all those people?”

Drip-drop

“Just a little more.”

I clench my teeth and walk as quickly as I can before I can hear the other woman’s reply.

I don’t want to hear it.

Before I know it, I arrive at my destination, and I grab a plastic blue basket sitting near the entryway.

And even though I know I shouldn’t, I feel invisible stares boring into the back of my skull as I grab the quart of Horizon milk from the freezer and when I look at the list I made for myself the night before. And I feel those invisible stares bear down harder on the back of my head when I glance at the bottle of bourbon my mother specifically asked me to get.

I don’t reach for it though.

But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.

When I leave with my heavy plastic bags, I run through my other errands, but I don’t remember any of them.

One of my friends is hanging around with a well-known group of troublemakers around the corner, and they’re laughing, cackling away at something I probably wouldn’t find funny.

The walk home is much more peaceful than it should be, and I take advantage of that by humming a merry tune that my father used to sing when I was younger. I remember where my father is right now, and I stop humming. The tune doesn’t seem as happy anymore.

I fish the small, silver key out of my pocket and twist it in the rusty, golden door-knob.

The door squeaks open, and I realize that it’s quiet.

No snores echo from the dingy kitchen,
Glass doesn’t crackle under my gray, raggedy slippers,
And most importantly, I can hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room.

The broken grandfather clock.

All of a sudden, a violent shiver racks through my body like I’ve been doused with the rotten water that I know is collecting down in the basement.

Something is horribly, incredibly wrong.

I drop my bags near my feet, and I vaguely hear the milk carton smack against the ceramic tiles.

I can feel the blood pumping through my body, and I’ve become hyper-sensitive to my surroundings.

Tick-tock

I swallow in the stale air.
My hearts quickens-
-and drops to an almost regular thump.

My body moves on its own, and my slippers gently clacks against the white tiles.

Pass the kitchen-

-making a softer sound when they hit the beige carpeting in the living room.

For a second, I can’t see what’s in front of me.
Because all I see is the light from the window hitting something foreign that I can’t quite make out with my eyes.

It doesn’t belong in the living room.

My mother’s pale, fallen body shouldn’t be there either.

Nor should the gun (that should have been in the basement) attached to my mother’s wrinkled, bony hand be there either.

Or even the hole in her forehead.

And all of a sudden, I recognize what the light is hitting.

Nothing in the living room is red, so the pool of blood around the body looks completely alien. The edge of the carpet where the blood is drying is already turning a rusty, filthy brown.

It’ssoredredredandIneedtocallsomeonewhatdoIdo-

Another drop

“No more.”

It’s not a lot, but it was already so close to the rim of the crystal wine glass that it all just overflows.

I don’t really know what happens afterwards.

My thoughts are all hazy, like I’ve been dunked underwater and all the noise just fades away, like there’s a filter over my ears.

I remember ripping the lacy tablecloth away and tearing it in two-

-the angry, betrayal of whywhywhywhy-

-clearing away the empty bottles of bourbon on the mahogany sitting table until they crack, shattering as they fall against each other-

-the hidden resentment of it’snotfairnotfairnotfair-

-and a litany of jumbled curses and howls of pain that tumble out of my mouth as I fall into a pit of rage.

It all just comes spilling over from the crystal wine glass.

I don’t recall my knees ever hitting the bloody carpet, nor the liquid that looks almost black soaking into my bottom of my pants.

But even if I can’t recall any of this, I still find myself almost ground level, staring into her brown and white eyes, my mouth gaping open because I can’t find the will to close it.

Even when she was too intoxicated to remember her own name, her eyes have never looked so dull.

The crystal wine glass is empty now that everything has spilled out.

Its morning and I wake to peeling wallpaper dotted with purple wildflowers and the sound of glass shattering.