When I was younger and struggling with trauma,

All I wanted was for my father to

Check me into a mental health facility

So I could look at everyone else and go

I'm not the crazy one here.

But maybe crazy is in the cracks of my fourth grader voice

When I sang the same Tim McGraw song in front of the class

Every day for a year, hoping my classmates would sing my praises

And forget that I was weird, or forgive me for 180 days of country music.

Maybe crazy is in the cracks of memories

I altered to make a better story.

Maybe crazy is in the cracks

Of my skin when I rub it raw.

Maybe crazy is in the cracks in my energy when I don't eat for three weeks

To see if anyone compliments my weight loss

Or asks if I'm okay, like a check up

That doesn't come with a $30 co-pay.

Maybe crazy is the cracks in my logic

When I say I've romanticized my mental illness

Because of the attention I get for being different

Even though being different hurts to think about too.

Maybe crazy is what hold my fragments together;

Gorilla glue to my porcelain.

Obvious, yet effective.

Not making me perfect, but making me whole.

How do I explain to my friends

My decision to stop drinking

Without also trying to explain to my friends

How it feels to wake up blackout drunk and confused

To the sound of accusations of infidelity.

And how do I explain to my boyfriend

My decision to hide my assault

Without also trying to explain to my boyfriend

How it feels to soberly resist

And choke on your no.

And how do I explain to someone new

How it feels to get up each morning in the same tainted bed

Without also trying to explain to someone new

How it feels to crave the darkness of a glass bottle sloshing with

Vodka, and club soda, and water flavoring drops.

And how do I explain to my father

How it feels to watch others find that darkness

Without also trying to explain to my father

My struggle choosing between the relief of fruit punch-flavored memory erasure

And still loving myself.

Did you love my personality

Or just my silhouette?

You connected my body

From joint to joint

Until I was a vision, but

Did you look between the lines?

I call for consensus

And find the diametrically opposed.

We are both UV light

And infrared.

In chemistry, you find

The number of individual moles

Through multiplication of concentration

And volume.

I look at the electoral map

And try to piece out

The concentration of voters

By the volume of a state

So I can find the individuals to blame.

I find I'm always missing

One part of the equation.

I hold my friends as they ask

Why does the world smell like smoke?

I pose this question in their place.

I hear you can’t fight fire with fire.

which sounds a lot like don’t ask questions, resistance is futile.

I am answered by

White men,

Straight couples,

Cisgender communities,

Conservative elders,

Christian women.

I am not convinced, so

I pose the question again.

I hear the world started burning long ago,

which sounds a lot like there’s no fight left.

I am answered by

Black men,

Non-binary couples,

Queer communities,

Millennial youth,

Muslim women.

So I hold my friends tighter and tell them,

we will douse the fire with water and well wishes

which sounds a lot like I don’t actually see a way out.

We plant a seed in the mind

of the shoddy reporter.

Tangle our lies in his truths

and see what we get.

Sensationalism.

Whittling down the story

to masked dolphins

taking over the world

because that's what we want to hear.

We engage in a frenzy.

Politicians stir up trouble to hide

The pipelines taking over sacred grounds.

I stop to ask myself

What could I have done better?

If I protested the pipelines

as hard as the right side of the aisle protests abortion,

would we have clean water in Michigan?

Fragmented thoughts produce

no new answers.

You told me over Facebook

extended a friend request my way.

We had the same last name.

and I liked the way you looked intriguing.

You may have thought we were distantly related

but, I'm sorry, friend

my family's not from around here.

You "poked" me twice and said I’m here

and I "poked" you back but said nothing.

I didn't realize you were simulating human touch

and asking for my helping hand.

I'm no good at social cues.

I know you never said these things

but I know you were telling me

you needed someone to hold out for.

I’m sorry, friend.

My help came too late.

I never thought to message you.

We had one mutual friend

and I didn't know how you picked me

out of all the mutual friends in cyber space,

but you were drawn to me.

You don't know me, friend.

But I feel like I know you.

The people write on your wall.

They tell you they miss you.

You've missed birthdays,

anniversaries,

sobriety.

They let you know like you're still here.

No worries, friend.

They understand you couldn't make it.

The papers said

you passed away at 23.

And reading the article confirmed

everything you told me.

You called yourself

a misanthrope of monstrous proportions

but I knew the truth

when you told me over Facebook

that you just needed a friend.

And I’m sorry, friend,

for not being that friend

Time for cake and presents!

I squat down and lean over, allowing Bre to hop on my back. Shooting back up, she squeals in my ear and I’m glad I decided to come. I’ve spent the last few months struggling to brush off my past and be a better person for my family, Bre in particular. Her innocence makes me feel like a kid again. I know she looks up to her big brother, and I need to be better for her.

I run at full speed to the cabana outside where my mother waits for Bre to come open her presents. The array of gifts is staggering. There hasn’t been a holiday, or even just a day when any one of us kids could say we went without. At least thirty gifts line the back wall of the cabana, and only five of Bre’s closest friends were invited.

As I squat back down, allowing Bre to take off running towards the tower of gifts, I marvel at her small stature and pretty features. She looks nothing like me. I know I shouldn’t expect it—I was adopted—but part of me still wishes we had something other than paper to claim us as brother and sister.

---

My mother miscarried as a teenager, too young to support another growing body. They tell the story at family gatherings, the story of how they carried on. When my father stayed with her, they covered their shame with a cheap cubic zirconia engagement ring, and a plain wedding ceremony.

My mother said the wedding ceremony was plain, but meaningful.

My father said the ring cost me my last $53.99 and I paid at least seven dollars of that in pennies from a childhood piggy bank.

A few years later they decided to start their family over again—they were ready for it—in love, employed, stable. Again, her body rejected the manifestation of blood and tissues.

My mother said my body just wasn’t ready to be a home. We just bought some Martha Stewart decorating magazines and tried again. Here she laughs at her joke, but I know it’s still painful. They mourned the loss and tried again in its memory…and again…and again. Each time held no hope, as my mother miscarried to the day she received an infertile diagnosis.

My father said Mom just shuffled the pamphlets in front of her and ignored the truth. He interjected on her behalf. When will it be safe to try again? The doctor gracefully overlooked it, continuing on.

In unison they say, one in every ten families suffers from infertility. You’re not alone, Mrs. Carmichael. It just wasn’t going to work.

---

So they adopted me from an underfunded orphanage in Detroit in a humanitarian effort, and that was is. I was their baby, and they were my family. It didn’t feel different.

Now I sit and observe my other siblings, varying in ages between 3 and 17-years-old. My parents’ diagnosis was abandoned when my mom became pregnant with my brother and sister, fraternal twins. Twenty years after their first miscarriage, their family had grown from two lonely lovers to eight vibrant family members. They were complete. The backyard has a small granite marker for every baby lost, all valued and celebrated like the living ones. Sentimental. Even with six kids and countless angel babies of their own genetic makeup, they never stopped loving me. Yet, I never paid back their kindness and love.

---

I remember the day I started smoking marijuana. I was 14. Half of it was a desire to be cool, half of it was to escape the daily taunts about being unwanted and from the inner city. I remember that Joe King was a piece of shit.

You’re from the ghetto?

He knew I was adopted. Hell, everyone knew I was adopted. My parents were very forthcoming with the information. They said it was part of my story, our story.

Ha! Even your real parents didn’t want you. You were poor, weren’t you?

I was pissed. Joe was a private Catholic school kid until he got to high school, which is where his parents hoped that mingling with kids like me would keep him humble. Bullshit. The only reason he was talking to me was because I was talking to the girl his best friend liked. He didn’t like me stepping out of my place in life. I got in his face and thrust him back into a wall of blue lockers.

Back off, dumbass.

He yelled for a teacher and I ran back to my homeroom before someone saw me. He kept yelling at me as I ran.

Poor kids don’t belong with pretty girls.

The words haunted me, and I got high to mellow out. I dropped out. I stopped working. But when my dealer moved to cocaine for the profit, I joined him. I could make thousands of dollars per day if I just got into the game. I was young, but perfect for the job; the cops didn’t suspect an upper middle-class kid from the suburbs to cause problems. Dealing drugs never sounds ideal until you get your first cash prize. Money in the bank felt good, felt right. I went back to school and got a real diploma. I bought my first car, and got an apartment. I bought my stability, my freedom.

As it turns out though, there’s no reward in being part of the game when people you know start playing it. My 17-year-old brother Alex started to follow in my footsteps when he saw what a day’s work could really bring home. I needed the money, but the game isn’t worth it when you’re watching your own family play with fire.

---

I remember the first day I found my brother on the streets. He was young, maybe

14-years-old at the time, but he hit his growing stage early, and looked at least 18. Did it really matter in the streets? I walked back to my apartment from the local YMCA where I worked out and saw him at a Chinese restaurant on the corner of 8th and Madison. As I walked up, I yelled his name and he turned and dropped what he was holding. Cocaine. I saw red, and without thinking, I ran up and I threw him against the brick wall of the restaurant.

What the fuck do you think you’re doing with that? Huh? Where do Mom and Dad think you are? Think it’s funny running around with grams of cocaine in your pocket? For what?

Chill, Dev. If you didn’t walk up like this, you would have never known. I’m careful. I needed the money.

For what? Mom and Dad and all of their money can’t provide for you?

You did it, too. I don’t want to hear it. You make good money; I’ll make good money. 

Look, we can even do it together so you can keep an eye on me if you’re that worried. I’ll be fine. Are you with me or against me?

Given an ultimatum by my own brother. Where the fuck did he learn this?

I didn’t hesitate. I was against him, my own brother.

---

I quickly surveyed the small crowd of people surrounding my sister and note that he isn’t here.

Mom, did Alex tell you where he was going to be?

I don’t remember, Dev. I think he said something about coming by later. After a school project maybe? Text Dax and ask him. I’m sure they’re together. They’re probably fine. I didn’t get to tell you earlier, but it’s good to see you. You look…healthy.

You’re right; maybe I’ll call him just in case.

Brushing off her last comment, I think about Alex. I know he’s fine. But I also know he’s lying. He runs still runs the west side of town with a couple of bigger guys around to protect him. As soon as I told him to forget his dreams of being my partner, he beefed up security. No funny business where his safety is concerned. I wish he had shown up, but at least she didn’t ask questions this time; I’m running out of excuses to cover him. Looking back at Bre, I take in her innocence again. She’s my beacon of hope, and I love being the one to shower her with the best gifts and surprises. I got a real job because of her. All that drives me in life is the desire to be better for her, to not let another sibling know how my past almost took me away from them. I want to have a daughter like her one day, and I hope they love me as much as Bre does. Or as much as Bre does when she doesn’t know the person I once was.

Picking up the phone, I look through the numbers on my speed dial. Number one is 911, number two is my old supplier, and number three is my brother. Holding down the number three, I listen to the phone ring while I think about what I’m going to say to him. I settle on asking him to come home, for good.

The phone ring switches over to the sound of an automated voicemail and I frown. I know Alex is always by his phone. He doesn’t want to miss an opportunity for new supplies or new clients. I press the number three again and let it ring. This time, the phone picks up on the first ring.

Dev, bro. Thank God. Where are you?

The voice on the end of the line does not belong to my brother.

Jimmie, I’m at Breana’s party, where are you? Where’s Alex?

Jimmie pauses, contemplating his next sentence. I can hear his breaths, irregular and scratchy from chain-smoking Marlboro Reds on street corners while he deals with Alex.

He’s down, man. I don’t think he’s gonna make it. He was making nice with this guys’ girl during a deal, and the dude just brought a gun out. Shot him right in the stomach. He’s bleeding out. I need you to get here now. Corner of 8th and Madison. Don’t take too long.

I sharply inhale, knowing the first rule of the game is no guns. If someone messes you up, they mess you up fair and square with their hands, no metal. I’m pissed. I run back up to the house, looking back at Bre and her party. She’s soaking up the attention, but my mother looks up and locks eyes. Her eyes look helpless, and I know she thinks I’m running to do a deal; I’m running to save your son. She doesn’t know I’m clean. It doesn’t matter. I know I can’t tell her the truth, not yet. I sigh in frustration and take off through the back doors and to the entryway. Grabbing my keys, I run out to my red Camaro and peel out of the driveway.

By the time I approach the corner of 8th and Madison, I see red and white lights engulfing the buildings like rogue flames. I yank my car to the side, a no parking lane, but I don’t care. I jump out of the car and run up to the side of that damn Chinese restaurant and see the pool of blood before I see my brother. His emerald green eyes are still open and he looks lifeless. He is lifeless. Shit. More than five years in the game and I’ve never seen anyone die. We were all careful. My eyes travel from his face to his stomach and I can see the skin tears and blood, and my stomach lurches. I run behind the building and reject all of the contents of my stomach. Pressing my arm into the wall to steady myself, I slowly slide down and allow myself to cleanse my sadness with the salty tears.

Twenty minutes later, I go back as the paramedics cross Alex’s arms over his chest and load him onto a stretcher. The medical crew slams doors shut, shaking their heads as they talk about the foolish kid who should have known better. I cringe at their judgments. My brother was more than his decisions.

The coroner declared Alex dead on arrival at the hospital, and as our family gathered around his hospital bed to say final goodbyes, I kept returning to the paramedics’ conversation. Maybe they were right, Alex was a foolish kid; that’s just it though, he was a kid. Death didn’t care. Alex was gone. Dead by gunshot. Dead by fire.

There’s an echo in my brain that hears her threaten to kill us all as she pulls out in front of a semi on a Georgia highway. There’s an ache in my chest that feels the tightness of the seatbelt webbing eat at my skin as I scream for her to stop the car. A simple argument turned into attempted homicide, a crime that carries the potential of 10 years in prison. Here, my mother is 42-years-old, but this crisis comes not in the middle of her life, but instead, the end. There is nothing to lose whether we survive this crash or not. It oozes desperation to take command over a life that spirals out of control.

---

My mother’s manicured nails tell a story of put-together-ness, but the truth of it is in her appendages, her body. Fingers merely bone with loose skin, her wedding band slides off, worn down after 22 years of tumultuous, holy matrimony. Her hands are porcelain white intersected by blue-river veins that poke out, a map for the blind. Her skin hangs loosely over her body like a pasty kimono, signs of rapid weight loss. She buys clothes from the children’s section of Wal-Mart because real women don’t come in sizes that small. Her hair is a pretty straw blonde, falling in loose waves down to her bottom. The top few inches are drenched in oil, unable to leave the bed to shower, fearful she’ll lose her breath in the few steps it takes to cross the room. She wears the same outfit for a week, and the mattress carries an indent of eight years of life within four walls.

---

My mother gave birth to me. While this is the basic biological assumption my friends make, my mother reminds me of this during all of our arguments. I brought you into this world; I can take you out of it.

---

I find comfort in icebreakers that ask what is your biggest fear? It is the only question for which I have a clear answer—sliding. In my recurring dreams, I am sliding off a ship. Sinking like the unsinkable Titanic, I am dodging large, brown wooden crates carrying personal belongings and memories. The crates come so close to my face I can see the dark brown waves of radial lines and knots etched in the grain. These lines carry time with them, something I desperately feel I am running out of. I grab the smooth metal railing but still I slide; yet I wake up before I face the reality of death. I awake dizzy and disturbed.

---

My mother loves genealogy. Like constellations, she connects the star-crossed lovers and long-lost children and tries to make something of the beautiful mess of people that had a hand in her existence. She once spent $100 on an online test that would determine her cultural heritage. She swabbed her cheeks and placed the cotton swab in an envelope, sealing it with more of her DNA. It came back with a list of continents and subsequent races that sat dormant in her bloodstream—Caucasian, Asian, Black. She deemed herself Caublasian like a hybrid scientific experiment of God’s own design. She thinks she is an original, but she is just like all the other women to come before her. I have no misconceptions about being original; I know I am just like my mother.

---

The silver Chrysler Pacifica came to a stop in-between two sets of handicapped parking spaces at a Marathon in Georgia. There was no need for propriety in a time of mental deterioration. The last family trip in the foreseeable future, my mother hoped to make the drive from Florida to Indiana in one long stretch to combat the nausea building in the depths of her stomach. The leather of the car interior pressed against my cheek as I pretended to sleep through the growing decibel levels of their quarrel. My mother was cranky, deprived of her medication so she could drive lucid. I tuned out their voices, and felt the lurching of the car and my stomach. Tires squealed in rebellion to the shock of quick traction as my mother ripped the car from its parking spaces and spun back to the interstate. She didn’t stop to look to her left before recklessly entering highway traffic. Her eyes blaze with something unfamiliar as she screams I’m going to kill us all.

---

In truth, it is the things I am sliding into that worry me most. I worry about sliding into the legacy, into the illness, into the apathy.

---

The saying the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree made me feel as if my mother was inescapable. I stop to remind myself that I am not my mother. If the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, it’s because the tree wasn’t willing to throw the apple out into the world and let it be its own. Instead, I imagine we are two negatively charged magnets; exact copies that push against each other and never come together. I find solace in this space of resistance.

---

My sister reaches frantically for my hand and they collide in the madness. We scream and cry, begging her to stop. I try to appeal to her senses, asking her not to kill us. What kind of mother kills her own family? I think of all the mothers in history, the ones who killed their children to protect them from the evils of the world, but my mother is the only malevolent force in this moment; my mother is not my savior. In this moment, I realize that being the vehicle for my existence did not mean I owed her my life. The blare of a semi horn awakens something in my mother and she swings the car to the left, slamming my head into glass; I will have a concussion for eight weeks. In this moment, we are sliding, but to the safety of another gas station parking lot on the opposite side of the highway. The feeling of sliding keeps me reeling for weeks. In my dreams, I slide without end.

---

My mother and I look a lot alike. Some would say, we even look like twins. She is beautiful, but she is volatile. Some days I wonder if the similarity stops at beautiful, or continues to that space of unpredictability. I spend quiet moments wondering if some days I slide into another personality, one given to me at birth, bound to my mother’s outbursts and bad love affair with pushing people away.

---

What is your biggest fear? they ask.

---

Sliding. 

Don't cry over spilled milk

Unless it's from your left breast,

And you're feeding your baby but

Your nipples are aching from the latch,

And you listen to them cry,

And now there's no will to carry on.

                                                           Don't cry over spilled milk

                                                           Unless it’s from her left breast,

                                                           And you’re trying to communicate that

                                                           Your stomach is completely empty,

                                                           And you listen to your mother cry,

                                                           And now she feeds you with a bottle.

Don't cry over spilled milk

Unless it's in your fine china,

And you threw it enraged by

Your now ex-partner's infidelity,

And you picked the nearest thing to you,

And now this puddle is the only thing remaining.

                                                         Don't cry over spilled milk

                                                         Unless it’s mixed with broken glass,

                                                         And now you’re thirsty because

                                                         Your drink is gone,

                                                         And you know your mother wants what’s best,

                                                         And now she goes by mom and dad interchangeably.

Don't cry over spilled milk

Unless it's your first Christmas Eve alone,

And you've said Santa's coming so

Your little ones won't sleep,

And you spent your last paycheck,

And now there's no electricity for the tree.

                                                        Don't cry over spilled milk

                                                        Unless it’s the first Christmas Eve without dad,

                                                        And you don’t think Santa’s coming but

                                                        Your mom insists on laying out milk,

                                                        And you don’t want to ruin the magic for her,

                                                        And now she sits under a dark tree.

Don't cry over spilled milk

Unless it's your last cup,

And you've used it to cook

Your last box of mac and cheese,

And you knocked the pot over,

And now there's no dinner until tomorrow.

                                                        Don't cry over spilled milk 

                                                        Unless it’s the last cup,

                                                        And your mother is on the floor and

                                                        Your mother is crying too,

                                                        And you watch her burn herself,

                                                        And now she can’t look you in the eyes.