Change (prose)

There are so many thoughts which he keeps to myself because there is nobody else with which he can share. For the last couple of days he has been sitting quietly crying whilst you smoke your cigarette. Tilting your fingers towards the air, signalling that you really don't care any more.

When he leaves the house, he pushes forward through the crowded streets, mingling, accustom to blending in. Pretending that nothing has changed, as he witnesses people gathering their daily shopping, to them life just goes on and on but that's not appealing to him and it certainly isn't beautiful. He's also out on his daily shop, or to be precise his fathers; a case of beer, a packet of fags, a meal for one and some rum and coke.

When he's in school, his mind constantly turns back to that day when he witnessed his father's brother, snorting cocaine in the kitchen, as his father continued as if everything was normal. When he grew taller and taller still, his uncle had transformed into a skeleton. An outline of a man he once knew, rotting from his occasional,( though regular) cocaine and alcohol abuse. Now a teenager and able to make his own decisions, he plans to get away from this continuous cycle. Like a caterpillar looking for a crack of light signalling his departure from its cocoon, eager to break free of his restraints he imagines having a particularity bright future.

About a month after the previous episode, his uncle emerges from his room and walks towards him, he's illuminated by a hint at conversation, he even begins to smile. But as though he is a phantom he continues to walk past and doesn't glance back once. The urge has began to rise from the pit of his stomach and he sees his uncle, desperately scramble through his Grandmothers purse to obtain the remaining money for his cocaine he only has a score, needs fifty.

Addictions, seem normal to you. But he can't keep pretending that it didn't feel wrong; for his father, to give his friend a 'pick me up' and ultimately encourage his own brother to buy some more. Some days he wants to say something, like it isn't rocket science to work out that your brother is in need of help. Now sign him in at the
drug clinic, do something productive for once, Dad, instead of acting like divine intervention is infinite, because I think we both know that it is not.

So he's made up his mind, he is leaving, on his eighteenth birthday. Leaving enough time to say good bye, then he is fleeing, he's made up his mind, he is leaving. Because sometimes he can't stand the sight of a whisky bottle in the super market or walk past a pub without shuddering at the thought of his future, like he's destined to become a drunk. Although his mind can't help but shout, “But that man is your Dad, how can your turn your back so easily?”

He imagines, somewhere past these houses, past the green continuous fields, which shine almost ominously when the sun hits the right position in the sky. Through the concrete labyrinth , away from the hunger of drug money, past the numbness of a pint of beer. Although another day may well quickly turn into another year, he is bracing himself for a change to arrive in the form of a parcel and set him free. Hopefully a ticket to America and a scholarship for poetry. ( And yeah he actually dares enough to dream)

He wonders on, eyes fixed towards the free-way anticipating the greatest ride of his life, when he's old enough to be classed a man, speeding away from the household of captivity(even though the chains of DNA, catch and ensnare his angles on bad days.) Somewhere across the horizon, he knows, just out of his eyesight, he feels the warmth of the sun rising.