by finestexamplecontributor

There’s no such thing!

If you’re a parent, or a teacher, or someone who spends any time around small people, the phrase “there’s no such thing…” will no doubt have you reciting rhyming couplets about tusks and claws and teeth and jaws. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about – that’s a shame, it’s actually quite sweet poetry. Check out The Gruffalo, it’s ace).

So I’m going to say this quietly, because it’s flying in the face of the zeitgeist of the day. There’s no such thing as zero waste. Even though it’s on every lifestyle blog and featured in every weekend supplement you lay your eyes on at the moment. Live the zero waste life. 20 steps to reduce your waste. The 10 must-have zero waste beauty products. Zero waste your kitchen! (Insta-yuck).

I think that the concept of zero waste is approximately as realistic as the big, bad Gruffalo himself. And definitely more dangerous.

So what is it all actually about? Throw nothing away, ever again? The basic principle of zero waste is to send nothing to landfill. Ok, great. I think it’s not hugely controversial to say that burying huge amounts of rubbish in big holes scarring the surface of the planet is not a great idea. Landfill sites can leak methane and other dangerous gases into the atmosphere as waste breaks down, and plastic waste in landfill will cause microplastic pollution into the watercourse. All very bad. BUT. Only 24% of UK waste now goes to landfill (2017 figures, sorry… it’s ridiculously difficult to find more recent waste data for the UK online). An increasing amount is now being incinerated.

It’s also difficult to find out the absolute percentage of UK waste being incinerated – possibly 10% in England? Possibly 42%? (Maybe it’s hard to find this out, as these Energy Recovery Facilities are usually run by private companies?) Certainly, incineration has increased hugely in recent years. Proponents says it’s a good thing – generate heat and energy from waste, closed loop system. Bingo. (Also avoid the new landfill tax). But there are opponents too of course, raising concerns in terms of air pollution, contribution to climate change and undermining recycling. Plus, there seems to be a pretty major problem with the ash residue – it can be filtered to separate out potentially recyclable materials such as glass and metal, then used as a building material, but does it contain microplastics which will leach into the watercourses?

But the hands of local councils appear to have been forced; the UK has nowhere near the infrastructure required to keep up with its plastic recycling demands, and many developing countries are now refusing to take imports. Quite rightly. (There is a whole other article here about climate injustice and the grim post-colonial approach of outsourcing this problem overseas). So more and more waste is being incinerated.

Honestly, I’m not a waste management expert, or a physics person; I’m a mum and a blogger with an English degree who’s also done 15 years hard labour in the NHS. I don’t understand the science behind all this stuff, but I’m worried about it.

Is it better to incinerate your plastic Coke bottle, and contribute to global heating and air pollution, or put it in the recycling bin, knowing it might end up on a rubbish tip in a faraway country, or in the ocean? How can we possibly know?

So the answer is to go zero waste, right? Rid your house of plastic, replace with glass and metal. Buy your Coke in a glass bottle. Put it in the recycling and it will almost certainly be recycled in the UK, in a closed loop system, to make another glass bottle. Ace. Next?

But it’s not that simple, is it? Glass is much heavier than plastic, so uses more fuel to transport, generating more carbon emissions. Contributing to the climate crisis, undoubtedly. The glass recycling process is hugely energy-hungry. Even Coca Cola themselves have got some qualms about the current spike in sales of their glass bottled products. So, buy your Coke in a can then? Well, drinking from cans might kill you… (Actually, not really – no evidence of harm from BPA lining or aluminium “leaching” unless you drink 1000 cans of soda per day, but hey it’s a good headline, isn’t it?)

Do you really need the Coke at all? Reduce, refuse, have a minimalist lifestyle. You should probably not be having all that sugar and nasty chemicals anyway, right?

It’s actually pretty easy for me to refuse soft drinks, in whatever packaging they come. Wine, less so. We all have our vices.

The point I am trying, possibly somewhat lumberingly, to reach, is that rejecting plastic absolutely shouldn’t be the sole point. Everything has a waste impact, absolutely everything you consume or bring into your house has been transported from somewhere and been packed in a material which has a carbon footprint of some degree. Let’s not forget that paper bags are made from trees, of course, and trees basically are the only credible solution currently existing to mitigating against humanity’s carbon emissions.

Much of the zero waste discourse urges you to rid your house of plastic, along with perpetuating all the myths and scandal about plastic leaching from every surface and poisoning you and your children. Not only does this create an unachievable and intimidating aim which could seem too huge to even contemplate, but also it’s all focused on the individual. You are responsible for fixing this, because you throw too much stuff away. You make bad purchasing choices. You should budget better to be able to afford more expensive, lower waste goods. The focus on the individual takes the pressure off corporations and governments, who arguably hold the key to real and sustainable change in relation to the climate crisis as a whole, as well as the complex issue of plastic pollution.

The ‘you’ in this discourse is, incidentally, almost always a woman. Women hold a huge amount of purchasing power as the key domestic decision-makers in the majority of households. But how do you manage to shop at a zero waste shop or organise delivery of an organic vegetable box when you’re out all day at work? How do you justify the expense of plastic-free toiletries if you’re a low income family? How do you respond when your kids are clamouring for the latest plastic LOL doll monstrosity which all their friends have? (Plastic toy snobbery is a particular personal pet loathing of mine). The added pressure on women to mastermind this stuff seems to me to be another largely unspoken problem.

The call to be “plastic-free” seems to generate some other weird paradoxes. Some examples I’ve witnessed:

  • Driving to the local zero waste shop to stock up on loose goods in nice glass containers (which are too heavy to carry on the bus or on foot, hence driving).
  • Trying out numerous plastic-free shampoo bars or deodorants before finding one which suits, thus wasting the resources used to make and package those products. Plastic or no plastic, it’s still waste.
  • Throwing away (yes, really) perfectly serviceable plastic food storage containers and replacing with glass and metal ones, to “become zero waste”.
  • Throwing away (again, yes, really) plastic toys that they disapprove of, which have been given to their children.

Some of this stuff is jaw-dropping in its ridiculousness to me, but people get caught up in their cause, and spend hours arguing and being vitriolic on the internet, criticising the efforts of others and making it seem like nothing is ever enough.  

Ridiculous stories aside, it really is incredibly hard to know what to do for the best.

I used a tin of coconut milk in a vegan curry last night (we’re not vegan, we’re not doing Veganuary, but I love Jack Monroe’s recipes and we are gradually reducing our meat consumption). Is it better to use coconut milk from Thailand (ethically sourced and produced? Who knows…) or cream from a cow at an organic farm in Kent? Is it better to buy air-freighted strawberries from Panama, or a steak from Surrey?

I wish I had all the answers. I don’t. I’m scared about climate change, scared about the impact it’s going to have on my son’s life. I’m trying to make a difference, feeling constantly guilty that I’m not doing enough.

But I’m not going zero-waste. I’m trying to educate myself. I’m trying to reduce packaging waste, while also thinking about the wider impact of all my choices.

Like walking 50 minutes home from nursery school with my son, rather than driving. While he eats some Christmas chocolate that possibly has palm oil in it, and glugs a mini Tetrapack of apple juice, which may or may not actually be recycled. Because you can’t win ‘em all, folks, but you can win some of them. And I think that for now that’s good enough for me.

Hannah is a freelance writer and blogger, who shares ideas for living more sustainably at her blog, www.everydayradical.net

The Everyday Radical Just an ordinary mum, making everyday radical changes to save the world for her extraordinary son. http://www.everydayradical.net

She believes that radicalism starts at home.  She is currently also working on a strategic project with a public sector client, while dabbling in some fiction writing. 

Hannah lives in South East London with a marauding toddler, an occasionally-marauding husband and a rescue cat, known as The Fluffbeast, who believes he has a very tragic life.

Looking to submit to us? We’re accepting Poetry, Fiction, Articles and Art! Please get in touch.

by finestexamplecontributor

Bad Company

Image by Jason Yearick

Bad Company, By Jason Yearick

Words are
falling,
tumbling, to
the ground
enjambments
spilling down
railways
without
a sound-
poets, are
whimpering,
writers,
simpering,
readers
wrestling
words
roughly,
regretting
this word
squall
realizing-
this poet,
has
abused
them
all.

Jason loves people and writes to inspire by speaking life through poetry, articles and Christian devotional pieces. Knowing how easily it is to allow the doldrums of life seep into one’s spirit, he reminds his readers that we’re all human and it’s our humanity that allows us to help one another.  He also enjoys scenic photography.

Visit Jason online at  http://fourcalendarcafe.com/

Looking to submit to us? We’re accepting Poetry, Fiction, Articles and Art! Please get in touch.

by finestexamplecontributor

Knitted Critters

Knitted Critters , Created By Jessica Snyder

On the Left: An Elephant & On the Right: A Group of Bears

Jessica Snyder has always loved animals. Throughout her life she has made animals through sketches, crafts, crocheting and knitting. She believes strongly in art therapy. Working as a Caregiver to the elderly, she likes to engage with them on multiple levels of creativity. She is also the wife of TFE Arts Editor Matt Snyder.

by finestexamplecontributor

A Siege On Sleep

A Siege On Sleep, By Kim Smyth

The nightly turmoil I’ve so come to dread                                                        

At times I think I’d be better off dead                                 

Than lie awake here while all else are sleeping                 

It makes me want sometimes to start weeping 

From my hyperacusis to hubby’s loud snore 

To my long-nailed doggies clicking the floor 

Who scratch and lick to get out the door 

Although it is partially open. 

Tossing and turning, trying to go under 

Finally succumbing only to awaken from slumber  

By snoring, or coughing, or some other fit 

He makes me uncomfortable just a wee bit 

Oh, who am I kidding, I’m mad as a wet hen 

Once more I try laying my head down again 

The snoring begins and I cover my ears 

Yet nothing is working, I’m almost in tears 

I’ve tried everything from plugs to fine oils 

Headphones, pillows, it’s taking a toll 

Nothing it seems can stop the icepick pain 

My eardrum feels like it might explode again 

I’ve left them before sleeping sound in the bed 

To seek solace elsewhere, to the guestroom I head 

Then just as I feel myself starting to drift 

I wake to the sound of some sort of rift 

The cat is now fighting the enemy in the yard 

I shut my eyes tight, I try really hard 

Now the doggies are wanting to get in THIS room 

I curse as I get up, sensing the doom 

Of another night robbed of the sleep I so need 

When from this nightmare will I ever be freed? 

I get up and go to the couch to try there 

Arranging my blankets, pillow, and chair 

Reading until I grow sleepy once more 

I move all my things and lay down on the floor 

What’s that now? Some jingle I’ve heard 

Running round in my head and I think, “How absurd! 

Get out stupid song, so I can just sleep!” 

When finally, I feel myself sinking down deep 

I curse the alarm as it suddenly starts beeping 

So fricking mad that I’m close to just weeping 

I hear him get up, as the shower starts to splatter 

He enters the room later saying, “What’s the matter?” 

I give him a look that says, “Can’t you just guess?” 

Then drag myself up and go start to get dressed. 

My night is now over, this battle I’ve lost 

I really need sleep now, no matter the cost 

Maybe I’ll nap sometime later today 

Oh, who am I kidding, I know there’s no way 

No one can help me I’m starting to think 

This war on no sleep will drive me to drink 

Maybe tonight with a fine glass of wine, 

I’ll find myself dreaming of something divine 

Until then I try to get on with my day 

I sit down at my computer, start plugging away 

While dreaming of stories I shut my eyes tight 

The next thing you know, I’m out like a light! 

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

Kim Smyth is a freelance blogger, a writer from the DFW Metroplex who lives at home with her hubby Dave and their three furbabies. She runs two blogs, contributes to different publications on Medium and has been published in Therapeutic Thymes and VitaBella magazines. 

Find her at https://kimmy1563.com

Looking to submit to us? We’re accepting Poetry, Fiction, Articles and Art! Please get in touch.

by finestexamplecontributor

The Guitar Hero Goes Home

An angel came to me when I was just a little boy. I was in my bed. A winter morning was just barely creeping through the window shades. It was quite early. My little brother was sound asleep in the bed across the room from me.

She was blonde, the angel, and just so pretty. And she told me things I eagerly believed. All about destiny and dreams manifesting, hearts rejoicing and being fulfilled. She told me this in pictures, you know; not words, as such.

It had something to do with a guitar.

So I begged my dad to buy me one. He said no. I begged again. He said no. I begged some more and he said, “If you don’t shut the fuck up, Christmas is never gonna come.” And he kicked me.

Right on my little shin. My left shin. It hurt like hell. I was just a little boy.

But Christmas morning came and there it was. A big red bow stuck on it and everything. A beautiful acoustic guitar. I don’t know how he afforded it. He worked, and all that, but, man, booze is expensive and he was always drunk.

And then he helped me learn how to play.

He sat me right down on the couch in the front room there, and he taught me C, D, and G. And he said, “These are easy chords. You learn ‘em and you can play about 50% of everything. So just learn ‘em.”

I was stunned, you know? I had no idea he knew how to play a guitar. There were no musical instruments in our house at all. Nothing to indicate I’d come from any sort of musical lineage.

But that Christmas morning, he lit a cigarette, sat down on the couch with my brand new guitar and said, “Sit right next to me here so you can see.” And so I sat down next to him.

He put the neck of the guitar in front of me, his arm came around me – a man who never even hugged me or got demonstrative in any way. His arm goes around me and he takes my little left hand in his and with his what seemed to me to be huge fingers, he helped me shape the chords right there on the frets of the guitar. And by lunch time on Christmas Day, I was playing it. Really playing it, you know?

Because he was right. You can play 50% of everything that’s worth playing in rock & roll with those three chords.

“Oh yeah, your daddy used to play,” my mama said a little while later, while she and I were sitting at the kitchen table, alone. “He played all the time when we were first dating.”

This, of course, was startling news to me. “But it bothered him, you know,” she went on.

“Because his daddy – your grandpa, who you never met because he died so young – was a drunk. He drank himself to death when he was 49 years old. And all he did when he was alive was haul your daddy around with him – a beat-up guitar and your daddy. And he’d go hang out in this little bar called the Pissin’ Weasel.” My mama laughed then. She was so pretty when she laughed. “It wasn’t really called that. It was something like the Piston Wheel, or something similar. But your daddy always called it the Pissin’ Weasel. Your daddy’s so funny.”

My daddy was funny? The same man who kicked me on my left shin because my wanting a guitar had irritated him?

“Well, your grandpa would play that guitar for hours on end in that bar and just get so drunk. Made your daddy stay there with him, hour after hour, listening to your grandpa sing those old hillbilly songs. Your daddy didn’t call it singing, though. He called it caterwauling like a drunk skunk in a steel leg-hold trap. And then when it got near closing time, your grandpa would make your daddy drive them both home. Your daddy was just a child. A little boy. He could barely see above the steering wheel!”

My mama went on to explain that it hadn’t mattered at all how angry that whole scene had made my daddy as a little boy, he still grew up playing the guitar. And before long, he was playing it and singing in bars.

“And that’s what he was doing when we met,” she said. “I thought he was the best-looking young man I had ever seen. And the way he sang could just melt your heart. I always tried to dress up as pretty as I could – well, as I could afford to, at any rate. And I’d go listen to your daddy sing and hope that he would notice me. And of course, he did. Because I was always there. And then, you know…”

She sat there at the kitchen table and smiled at me in the most beautiful and yet peculiar way. And in the softest, prettiest voice, she said: “Now, don’t you ever tell anybody on Earth that I told you this. But it was right around the time that your daddy and me got married – right around that time; very, very close – we found out I was gonna have you.”

Then she winked at me! I was way too young to have any clue what she’d meant by that.

That cute little wink just stumped me. I’d never seen my mama do a thing like that before. It wasn’t until I was a little older and just by accident happened to do the math regarding their wedding day and my birthday. Then it all came together and made great big sense.

They’d been doing it before they got married.

And I was the reason they’d gotten married.

And having a new mouth to feed is what caused my daddy to quit playing his guitar and singing in bars and to go to work at a regular job, because he didn’t want to end up like his own father had – a drunk, caterwauling in a bar, dragging his son around so that he could get a sober ride home at closing time. But instead, my daddy became a drunk who had a regular job that bored him to tears and dreams so dead it filled him with nothing but anger.

Anger and a little rage.

But that Christmas morning, he was patient with me. For the first and last time, if I remember right.

He took my fingers in his and pressed them down on the strings against the frets and said, “No, son, like this. Press a bit harder. Let each of those notes really ring. It’ll hurt, at first, but you’ll get callouses and it’ll be fun to play. You won’t notice any pain.”

Right away, I started writing songs. But I didn’t tell anybody. My brother knew, but I made him swear not to tell a soul. I’m not sure why it bothered me that I was writing so many songs, or why I didn’t want anyone to know. I guess because, down in my heart, I knew I really, really wanted to go hang out in bars and sing and play my guitar. And I knew that wasn’t gonna go over at all in my house. Just not at all. And I was right. Because as soon as I got just a little bit older and started playing music with my buddies and practicing out in the garage like everybody else was doing back then, it pissed my daddy off to no end.

Even though he let us use our garage most of the time. I could tell it made him mad. My grades were suffering and he could see I had no thought in my head about getting a regular job, or going to college, or anything like that.

When I was 18, I left home with my guitar and a couple of the guys I’d been playing music with around town, and my girlfriend – who later became my first wife. We were all going to New York because I was gonna go get famous. I knew I would. I knew I had it in me. I knew my songs were good. But when I was leaving, my daddy took me aside and said, “Just try to keep it in your pants, son. Because there’s no quicker way to kill a dream. You will kill it quick and hard if she gets knocked up. It costs money to feed a kid. More money than you’ve ever seen.”

We all piled into the van and I left my daddy standing there in the driveway, just standing there, staring at me, a look on his face that seemed to say that, even though my little brother had eventually come along, too, and my little sister after that, it was me; I was the one whose mouth had been impossible to feed. I was the one whose hunger had cost him more money than my daddy had ever seen.

When I got a record deal, and when my songs got on the radio, and I got written up in magazines – it made my dad happy. It did. You had to know him pretty well to see it. It wasn’t easy to see the difference in my daddy looking drunk and angry and my daddy looking proud of me. But I knew the difference, and that’s what mattered.

By the time my daddy died, I was really famous. Famous, with two little girls who always had food in front of them whenever they sat down at the table. Girls who’d been conceived in love. Who were sheltered by love. Who were nothing but love to me.

It didn’t hardly cost me anything to feed those girls.

Photo by 42 North from Pexels

Marilyn Jaye Lewis is an American writer of novels, short stories, memoirs, screenplays, and theatrical plays. Her work has won numerous literary awards and has been translated into many different languages. “The Guitar Hero Goes Home” is excerpted from her newest experimental novel, Blessed By Light.

You can find her online at Marilyn’s Room. Follow her on Instagram; Facebook and Amazon.

by finestexamplecontributor

The Fabric of Time

The Fabric Of Time, By Stephanie Musarra

The Fabric of Time

Clock ticks at random increments

Time jumbles

And distorts

For the time of the immortals

Knows no bounds

And holds no stitch to

The fabrics of time

Stephanie Musarra is a college student majoring in computer science who likes writing poetry and short stories in her spare time. You can visit her website here, or follow her on twitter.

by finestexamplecontributor

Can I Keep You?

Can I Keep You, By Jenny Guilford

Meeting new friends can be overwhelming. 

I know it hasn’t really been that long, 

But now that we have met, I want to ask 

A simple question, even if it’s strange. 

Can I keep you? 

I know that you’re a person, not a pet, 

I know you’re not a creature I can keep. 

You’re more than that, I know, I understand. 

But I still need to ask 

.… 

Can I keep you? 

Can I keep you as my friend 

Can I keep you as a buddy. 

Can I keep you when I need you 

And even more when I don’t. 

The only thing that I had hoped to say 

Is that I think that you are worth… keeping. 

Because to me it seems that you are great. 

If you aren’t sure, don’t answer straightaway. 

Just think on it, and maybe let me know. 

Because if I was brave enough to say 

The whole truth 

If I was brave enough to ask 

The real question 

I would say 

.… 

Will you keep me? 

Jenny Guilford – 2019

Jenny Guilford is a composer & writer from Australia. After five years as a freelance composer, with music performed by professionals and community groups alike, she has since expanded into freelance writing. With a focus on the importance of stories and building healthy creative practice, her work aims to inspire creative thought and emotion. You can listen to her music and read more of her work here: https://jennysjourneythroughwords.com


Image by Thanks for your Like • donations welcome from Pixabay

by finestexamplecontributor

EPIC

Epic, by Jeannine A. Cook

They weren’t dead, but they were almost dead. Brenda was the one I wished would die first. Her hair was cornrowed down to her neck. She’d slap gel and poop and piss between her braids. When Grandma couldn’t take her client Brenda’s shenanigans, Grandma would stuff a dirty tennis ball in Brenda’s mouth and cover it with duct tape. Grandma used to be a nurse so she knew how to tie Brenda’s arms to the bed with ropes. She was the reason we kept locks on the refrigerator. I laughed at Brenda when she got tied up. She laughed at me when she got free. I hated Brenda.

And then there was Kitty. Kitty had one arm and no legs, but she’d talk to me until I napped at her feet. She told me to never ask what happened to her. Just remember this is what happens when people try to get away. I told Kitty everything. She knew how much I wanted my mother. I’d draw pictures of what I thought she might look like, but Grandma threw them away. If I got caught speaking about my mom, Grandma tied me to the bed tight. I had pain. Kitty had a more pain. When she was hurting her eyes went big and her skin went tight. Her short curly hair filled with sweat. Grandma said Kitty talked too much. ‘The pills made her shut the hell up and stay the hell still.’ But the more pills we gave her, the crazier Kitty got. 

“Epic. Epic. Get grandma. Get your graaaaaaandma. Tell her I’m hurting. Tell her I am in pain. Help me, Epic. Help me.” She scream-whispered down the hall. The pain made Kitty talk through her teeth. She’d spit on me when I got too close. “Epic. Epic. Can you hear me, Epic? Can you? I need help.” She spoke fast and slow. 

“Grandma, Kitty needs pills,” I’d say. Grandma would pull out a baggie of multi-colored pills. 

“Make sure she takes them all.” 

I stuffed them in Kitty’s mouth and fed her water. I hid a few for later. In case Kitty needed them.

“And tell her to shut that mouth or she’ll get the muzzle,” Grandma screamed through the walls a few minutes later.

I didn’t like watching Kitty cry. She was my friend. She was a Scuba Girl. She had the tshirt and gloves to prove it. Kitty hollered for another hour even after I gave her the pills.

I hate Brenda’s stupid hyena laugh. Once, when she still could talk, she grabbed me while I was walking to the bathroom, and tried to make me sit on her lap. 

“Sit on me, Epic,” she said. “Play with me.” I peed right on her feet. She pointed at her pee covered socks and laughed. She got tied to the bedpost for that and I got tied to the bedpost too. Even though I hate Brenda, her laugh reminds me of my mom.

Grandma came out of her bedroom in a towel and slippers agitated. Her boyfriend waved at me from the room when she opened the door. I didn’t wave back. He flashed the middle finger at me as he left. I flashed the middle finger right back. 

“Dinner time,” Grandma sung. Forced the blue pills down Brenda’s throat with her fingers and followed it with duct tape. She gave me orange pills and spanked my butt with a hanger. ‘I spank you for what you might do. Get your ass in that bed.’ We all went to sleep.

I woke up coughing in a room full of smoke. When I opened my eyes, Brenda was pointing at Grandma’s room with both hands and laughing. Duct tape hung from one side of her mouth and she had a lighter in her hands. When Brenda gets out of bed, we all have to get the water board. 

“Go back to bed, Brenda. You ugly stinking, asswi….” I started. 

Brenda kept laughing. Doubled over even. And then I couldn’t catch my breath from the fumes. I shoved Brenda trying to run to find my Grandma. Brenda shoved me back and I noticed the ashes and cigarette butts in her hair.

“Grandma,” I called out before the smoke stole my air. 

“Grandma,” Brenda mimicked me jumping up and down not letting me by.

“Stop it, Brenda you ole fat stupid dum…,” I managed before my chest overheated. 

On my way to Grandma’s room, Kitty called out my name. 

“Epic, please help me first,” Kitty coughed. “Crawl to me, Epic. Get on your knees and crawl to Kitty. Don’t inhale the smoke. Grandma will be ok. Come help Kitty.” 

I got on all fours holding my breath like a diver. Deep breath from the bottom of your lungs like Kitty always said. Brenda did what I did only laughing wildly.

“Hold your breath, Epic.” Kitty hollered from her room. 

“I am coming…” I started to crawl when ugly nasty stinking Brenda snatched my leg from under me. She held it in one hand and wouldn’t let go. She held it high and low. I tried to turn over and hit her in the face. But she wouldn’t stop. She yoyo-ed me up and yoyo-ed me down. The more I fought, the more she laughed, the more I cried for my mom. 

“Brenda,” Kitty called sternly from the other room– somehow knowing what was happening. “Brenda listen to me, let him go.”

Brenda beat her chest with one arm and held my ankle in the other. With my free foot, I cocked back and kicked in her top lip. Her head jerked back and her mouth bled. She smiled harder. Using the hand that was holding my foot, she stopped the blood. 

“Epic. You have to get me off this bed,” Kitty called again. 

“I am coming, Kitty. I am coming.” I crawled to her room.

At the same time, Grandma called out too. “Epic. Epic. Help me.” 

I put Kitty’s chair on the side of her bed, climbed on and pushed and pushed at her wiggling misshapen midsection until she was in her chair. When we both got to the hallway, I started towards Grandma’s room, but Kitty was going the other way. 

“You getting your Grandma?” She asked confused.

“Yes. I said.” 

“Give her these pills then,” Kitty told me. “They’ll make her shut the hell up for once,” and then Kitty used her lips to roll her chair to the front door. 

“Ok.” 

I stayed on all fours through the maze of a house. Through the kitchen, across the living room, down the hallway into Grandma’s room. 

Her eyes were filled with tears. She was staring at the sky gasping for air.

“It’s gonna be ok, Grandma.” I lied. 

“Grandma, I promise,” I lied some more. I climbed her bed and held her hand. Then sat above her on the pillow placing her head on my lap. I held her head as she stared at me.

I woke up to Grandma’s cold body jerking back and forth. 

Brenda had her hands around Grandma’s throat and she was laughing from her gut. Grandma’s eyes rolled back into his head. 

“Grandma,” I couldn’t shake her loose from Brenda’s grip.

“Brenda,” I mustered. “Brenda you doo doo hair wearing, french fry eating, fish butt smelling, dragon breath breathing…” On the word breathing I hauled my whole body at her neck. She landed on her back. I stayed on top her grabbing her hair and beating her head into the ground. She snarled and spit at me. I scratched her eyes and bit her cheek. When i was about to butt her in the nose with my head, the emergency workers burst in. 

“She was trying to hurt her,” I explained still kicking as they peeled me off of Brenda’s neck. “Brenda tried to choke Grandma,” I explained. 

My heart pumped blood through my chest. They adjusted Grandma. Checked for her pulse.  

Gushes of water spraying through our house puddling on the floors.

“Son, I am going to get you some help,”  the worker bent over to my eye level and picked me up. “No one should be living like this.”

They loaded Kitty, Brenda, and now me into a van. Brenda’s bloodied mouth snickered when she saw me. 

“Is there anyone we can call for you,” the officer faked a smile. “Do you have a mom or a dad we can contact?” He avoided everyone else but me. 

Kitty spoke up. “Officer this is his mother,” she said pointing at Brenda. The officer looked confused and so did I. 

“But how…”

“How wha?”

“Well ma’am, she, uhh…”

“She’s my sister,” Kitty replied. “I’m his aunt. And that monster right there.” She paused. “That’s my mom.”

When I looked to the right, I saw the emergency workers wheeling out a body covered head to toe in a thin white blanket. My Grandma’s manicured pink toes poked through.

“We did it,” Kitty said turning to the Brenda and then me. 

“We did?” I asked. 

Brenda burst into laughter and opened her arms for a hug.

For the last 10 years Jeannine Cook has worked as a trusted writer for several startups, corporations, non-profits, and influencers. In addition to a holding a master’s degree from The University of the Arts, Jeannine is also a Leeway Art & Transformation Grantee and a winner of the South Philly Review Difference Maker Award. Jeannine’s work has been recognized by several national with and international news outlets including the New York Times, CNN, Ebony, BET, Barcroft TV and Daily Mail. She is a proud educator and mother  8 years of teaching creative writing in alternative schools. She recently returned from Nairobi, Kenya facilitating social justice creative writing with youth from 15 countries around the world. Jeannine has shared her “out of the box” approach to organizing through guerilla creative writing with over 1000 schools, neighborhoods, community groups, and organizations in Philadelphia. She considers herself a visual ethnographer because she often collaborates with hidden communities to recover a suppressed history. She writes about the complex intersections of single motherhood, activism, and community arts. Her pieces are featured in several publications including Mothering Magazine, Girl God, Mahogany Baby, Good Mother Project, Printworks, and midnight & indigo. Jeannine is currently producing an art installation of her writings deconstructed into paper art sculptures, collages, and calligrams called Conversations With Harriett.

website: jeannineacook.com
twitter: @jeannineacook instagram: @itsmetheyfollow