Bittersweet September

Kathy woke up and realized it was the first of the month, which meant the rent was due, yet again. She was 52 years old and this was the first time in her life she had to be concerned with paying for where she lived. She laid in bed and wondered to herself how she got here. She thought back to when she was a small child and shared an attic bedroom with her 4 other sisters. She dreamed of being a singer and was utterly inspired by Michael Jackson. Kathy just knew back then she would be something amazing when she grew up. She thought back to how that sweet little girl with black ringlets and round almost black eyes had no way of knowing she would never be something special. She would grow up to only know addiction and violence. Addiction is like the fall air, bitter, cold, filled with a sweet smell of maybes but just like the fall, addiction is only filled with endings and death. Kathy knew she had to get out of bed and make it to her dealer before she started to feel dope sick. Her brain already felt like bees had swarmed in to make a nest for the winter. She knew she only had enough for the rent in her account and would be threated with eviction if she used a drop of the money but the threat of the sickness was worse. She gathered her things and kissed her daughter goodbye as she ran out the door to her beat up old Toyota. It wasn’t a far drive and she knew she could make it before her skin would start turning gray with withdrawal. She hopped in the car and prayed it would start. The engine turned over and let out a terrible growl. Kathy turned on the radio to distract her from her sour stomach. She thought about her daughters laying in their beds and about her granddaughter on the way. She never spoke of her addiction and neither did her children. She could never allow them to see her weak again. Kathy had just left her youngest daughter’s father, who was a pure beast of a person. She thought about how she had only put up with the abuse for 5 years for her children. She could not provide them with a home without help from him so she dealt with it. She laid next to him everynight with his breath stinking of vodka. She dealt with the punches and the way he grabbed her throat desperate to end her life. She would lay silently scared to wake him to start the violence all over. She had escaped but she never could escape this addiction it clung to her like a fetus desperate for life. She was almost at her dealers, she could almost feel the numb the drug would provide. The body high was nothing compared to the feeling of drifting back to feeling like that little girl singing Michael Jackson at the top of her lungs before she knew the drug and violence that poisoned her life and soul. A time before she was this person who would do anything to get high and before she was a person her children couldn’t look in the eye. She was eager and excited for the high and she could think of nothing else. Kathy was so distracted she couldn’t have seen the truck shifting lanes, coming across the highway ready to make impact. The truck was like the Fall, it was cold as it smashed into the small Toyota, ripping it in half like the wind does to the leaves on the trees. In the moments of her death she realized she would never know anything else but the desire and need of the drug that ended her life. The fall brings death and destruction to nature and all things beautiful like Katherine Ann.