THE TOILET AS RESPITE
On just some sk8ter boy.
A settled silence like the calm after a storm. After my dad ridiculed my mother’s cooking, and instead of fighting back, she sauntered off to the bathroom. Door quietly latched shut. A plunking sound as she sat on the toilet - the only place of respite in the house. A pen clicking on a page- my own- as I fiercely scribbled in my diary wondering why I was here, if aliens would come summon me onto their UFO and ending with a musing on how I loved staring in the mirror with a bare chest, a pair of long cargo shorts, holding my skateboard tightly to my side. Was Avril Lavigne singing about a skater boy that looked like me? All things, someone would read about later. There is no privacy here.
Momentary silence is disrupted by sighs and the rustle of a door knob. My mother and I enter back into reality - both sniffling - and us knowing that he wasn’t good enough for her.