Dead Beat Dad

positive Positive POSITIVE

BANG! BANG! BANG! Sonia and Toni yelled in child’s play. Imitating their favorite videogame.

“I’m positive I can kill all the negative.” “It’s where we live, so It’s all relative.”

A salaried protector ran up, aimed, shot.

BANG!

Nothing goes quicker than a black behind the trigger.

Sonia was an artist who never imagined creating her own chalk outlined feature.

Her mother ran up. Clothed to hide in plain sight. Embarrassed that her daughter would ruin her life.

The girls gave each other a look, secretive as a whisper. Recognizing the mother’s unhappiness since the first nine months of a lifetime commitment. One that minutes of pleasure did not prepare them to live with- drinking themselves still- eyes as anchors. The upside of life drowned them as they tried to hang onto fleeing men.

These daughters needed more than sympathy and flashes of love, glimpsed through pain. They needed to see more than beauties revealing worn, battered flesh as a treat- enticing, begging their beast to stay, even when he fights to find another, vulnerable beauty to ravish and maul, -pleasing himself from women’s pain.

Human animals-trained to be...

“I’d rather be alone and happy.” Sonia said.

“A future is always in disbelief of what the past allows you to be.” Said Toni.

BANG! BANG!

The breeze of death tickled, and the girls let out a battle cry. Ending a maternal cycle of life.

“I’m gonna be hood famous and finally free of this trap.” Toni said, raising her gun for Sonia to tap

“I have to go to my neck of the woods to take care of my dad.”

They departed, walking backwards, giving a bleak stoic look of hope the dying give their surviving beloved.

Tracks separated city from woods. Places where, depending on pigment-one is believed to always be up to no good. The first lesson American children and immigrants are taught. Twins born equal, separated by a look of perceived evil.

In a brick fortress surrounded by stairs and doors. Sonia, from the city climbed to her escape. In a place, where people normally run the other way, unable to rise from the punches that steal breath.

As she walked the hall, she heard yelling, cries, beatings, drumming clapping and moans. A familiar sound of broken homes. Her sperm donor gave her a key in case she ever needed anything. A slick gesture to overwhelm and pass over neglect. The light metal doors were the lid of a cheap casket, the closure given to ghetto bastards.

She rubbed her belly to soothe the kicks and punches, then entered. Speakers blared, echoing sounds of aggression and enjoyment of pain. She followed the sounds to a back room and saw bodies gyrating to the beat, stroking out moans. Mans desired tone.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Lifeless slabs, gone mid stroke.

Now here, was her dead-beat dad. Finally resting in one place.

His stunt of the week, month-whatever she was would never find another daddy’s love.

On the other side…

Deep, in the thick. Cans, bottles, rope, bikes, motors, tools to make life hollow, decorated an entryway. In his favorite resting place, a lounge chair under the dark sky and mirror moon, where reflections can hide truth. Toni sprinkled gasoline on a blanket. The cologne of the rugged, lubricating a hard life, men like her father accepted being stuck with.

She watched his nostrils flare and lips curve into a smile of comfort as he pulled the blanket tight. She lit the last spark that changed his life. It flashed like a direct look at the sun, but she would not avert her eyes. Surfaced pain cannot be hidden. It heals hard, like vomit, leaving a lingering smell and look of a person who cannot go further.

Toni emerged blush red. A trait from her father’s neck of the woods-where bond fire fights led to sweaty pillow talk. She rode her father’s lawnmower home-his escape from a world that would not allow driving while intoxicated. She splashed her face with heated pool water, entered the back door, then stood dazed, caressing the heated floor with her cold toes.

The maid cleaned the life out of their home. Leaving only her stoned mother, matching the marble statues idolized by her now identical, identical father.

Toni's birth invaded her parents’ happy place. Where pills brought you to heights where you could face and beat a life you claim you love. Alcohol bottles used to wash unwanted presents were lined and stacked for shopping. A prescribed diet to numb and hide abuse the rich way, so it was never missed. Thriving and prospering off ignorance. Hiding filth during daylight. Playing a perfect life in their suburban ghetto a code word to describe their version of living niggroish.

The girls were in sync. Using a rhythm that haunted thoughts.

As night fell. Each made terror rise. Two moons on the same night. One bright the other shrouded behind dark clouds, familiar faces matching their colored towns.

Till this day, people wonder, what happened to them- but only the young folk. The adults know. When they look in the mirror and see face of their homes.