Bitter Mornings

I sit alone drinking a black coffee as cold and bitter as the winter morning outside. My only source of light and warmth being the light post just outside my house.

Mom and dad were arguing again last night, and it kept me up so long I realized that I only had 10 minutes until my alarm for school would go off. I got out of bed with a sigh and went out to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. When I get to the kitchen, I see a pale yellow post-it note that on it in a hurried scribble of black ink says "I left to stay a night at my friend's house, you have to walk to school, sorry. I love you, mom" I groan as I turn on the expensive coffee machine that dad got from his boss on Christmas back when he had a good job to start brewing the coffee and grab my backpack from the dining room where I had been doing homework last night. They were to busy arguing to help me.

I hear the ding of the coffee machine as it finishes brewing and head over to grab my cup, as I do though I pass by the open pantry and see that its empty, they were too busy arguing to go to the store so I wouldn't be eating lunch today.

I grab the cup and I walk out to the end of my short driveway littered in cigarette butts and sit on the bench that I helped dad carve from the trees that were in our back yard that we used to use for watching birds together as a family, back when we were happy. I sat there pondering why my parents hate each other more than they love me, "it's because," I think "they don't realize that their petty actions against each other are causing me to suffer." I wonder if I should tell them this, but I quickly push back the thought, it'd best to avoid their attention.

People at school will tell me I'm lucky, that somehow me having a nice house means that everything that happens there is nice too. As though me having 2 parents means that they love me more. They don't realize the horrors that go on in that so called idyllic brick home, the nights I stayed awake wishing that I had lived in their tiny apartment with only 1 parent to take care of me. The afternoons I spent listening to them arguing hoping that I wouldn't dragged into it and forced to pick a side.

I still sit alone on that bench drinking a cold and bitter coffee, whose chill bites through me in a way that feels almost comforting. I used to sit out here during their arguments hoping that we could go back to how things were, that ended when he threw an empty beer bottle that hit her in the eye leaving a striking scar when it broke apart. The birds still chirp here, singing their beautiful song that we no longer hear, dancing their awe-inspiring dance with their impossibly elegant wings that we no longer see. Eventually though I have to stand up and go to school.