Broken lamp, shatters on the ground.

Broken wall, a gaping hole staring.
Broken door, hanging off the hinges.
Broken heart, they were at it again.
I woke up to a stream of light in my face from the window. I found I was in the fetal position, covered with a small towel. There weren’t any blankets. They always took them with their van and their friends and their booze and their words. They left only nothing. Like mattresses and birthday candles and junk mail and me. We all lay strewn about the ground, helpless and harmed and left by them.
I pulled the towel off of my small frame and set it onto the dirty, creaky mattress on which I had resided last night through it all. I glanced around. No one was here. Again. At least I didn’t have to deal with them anymore. I didn’t have to deal with the drinking and the swearing and the screaming. I only had silence and the walls and myself. The AC sang to me through the vents, sending chilly gusts my way. I shivered and stood up, trying to get warm by walking around the room. The carpet squeaked under my bare feet as I made my way over to the kitchen. When people woke up they normally went to eat food.
I had learned that from a magazine about health that my parents had left forgotten in the bathroom, just like everything else in the house. I felt my feet hit the freezing tile of the kitchen and made my way over to the fridge where I opened up the door, gazing in. Everything was so cold in this house and the fridge was no exception. Inside the fridge there was almost nothing. There was only a stick of butter and a half drunken bottle of wine. There was also a balled up receipt that someone had forgotten probably. I sighed. I couldn’t do anything with this. Wine tasted awful and you couldn’t straight up eat a stick of butter.
I closed the door with a slam and I sulked over to the living room sofa. It was lumpy and grey and was as comfortable as a slab of concrete. Various articles of clothing were lying on top of the cushions, smelly and worn thin from overuse. The cold air from the vents chilled my body and sent shivers down my spine. I thought it would be best if I put a layer of clothing on top of my half naked body. I had fallen asleep with only my underwear on and my chest uncovered. Being eleven made this ok but it was still uncomfortable because of the coldness.
I walked over to the sofa and picked up a large faded t-shirt with many holes and slipped it on. It smelled of cigarette smoke. Thankfully I was used to it and sometimes I enjoyed the smell because it meant that they were back. Other times I loathed it for the same reason. I sat down on the sofa, temporarily forgetting how uncomfortable it was and quickly slid down to the grey carpeted floor. I chilled there sitting cross-legged, looking around the dusty, awkward room. I was sooo bored. There was nothing to do.
I crawled under the small wooden coffee table and lay down belly up, staring at the bottom of the table. There were 4 pieces of dried gum under it and two stickers, one of a cat in a box and one of a heart. Both looked ancient. Well, everything in this house looked ancient. I crawled from under the table and over to the wall adjacent it. The one with the two tall windows. There was a pile of old newspapers by the window on the left and an empty box of crayons on top of it with its contents strewn about near the pile.
I approached the pile and crouched by it, picking up a peach colored crayon, gripping it so hard in my closed fist that it snapped in two. In a fit of rage I threw the pieces of crayon at the wall and watched them bounce off. I then felt myself stand up suddenly and kick the papers everywhere, screaming loudly. It was as if my body was moving without me willing it to. I flung my arms and hands everywhere and pulled at my hair, getting it awfully tangled up and stomped about the house through the kitchen and back into the room with the mattress.
I jumped up onto the other sofa that was across the room as I still flailed my arms. I lost my balance and fell back first onto the cushions and lay there, not doing anything, just lying there. I felt a wetness on my face and realized I had been crying. I didn’t know that. I hated when I did this and so did my parents, they yelled at me when I did but I couldn’t stop it. They called me a “retarded child”, “special case”, and “insane” as well as many other things. I didn’t usually understand what they meant but I knew they were mean. They had explained one day that the reason I did these things was because I was autistic. I didn’t understand what that meant either. They never said nice things to me and I didn’t expect it anymore. I said nice things to myself; but only when I was feeling nice, which rarely ever happened.
I still lay there looking at the cracks in the ceiling, breathing hard, tears still streaming down my face. I saw shapes in the cracks and smiled. One looked like a dog, another like an elephant, another was a baby carriage. I reached my hand out to touch them but I couldn’t. I then traced those shapes in the air, not paying attention to what I was doing. I let my mind wander.
My eyes slowly fogged over with a haze only daydreamers get as my thoughts were set free. I went to the back of my mind and saw the boards on the doors, the empty spray can bottle, the moonlight shining down. I heard the train whistling, the trees rustling, and crying. The crying of my mother as she clutched a bottle of beer in her shaking hand. Her legs gave out and she fell to the grass covered ground. She let out a wail and then took a big swig of her intoxicating liquid. Her sobs mixed with the wind that crashed into us as she stood in shock.
On the door to our house were large heavy boards and a sign nailed into them, holding onto the words that my parents had been so afraid of. “Foreclosed,” said the dark ink against the pale paper that caught the light from the moon looking down on us. My father stood there holding my small hand in his large rough one. I felt his grip tighten as he read the words over and over again until I cried out in pain. He threw me to the ground with a loud cry and stormed off, pacing back and forth, mumbling. I let out a small whimper but knew better than to make myself be heard by them. When they got like this I knew I should be quiet.
I crawled over to my mother and looked up at her tear streaked face. She held onto the bottle of liquor like a baby doll. She took another drink and stood up all wobbly. She looked down at me, her face hard and wet. Her pale eyes pierced into my own and I stared into them as she did to mine. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain on my cheek and fell to the leaf covered ground once more. I realized she had smacked me. I looked up to her as she neared me once more, aiming another hit for my face. I jumped away quickly, letting out a yelp as I hid behind a tree. She lurched towards me, pushed me onto the ground, got on top of me and started mutilating my face. She screamed about how this was my fault, how I was useless, how I was just a burden and a big bundle of debt.
I screamed, cried, kicked, and scratched, anything to get away. Somehow I managed to bite her on the arm, hard. She yelled out as she let me go. I sprinted away, hiding behind another tree and poking my head out to look at her again. To my surprise, she didn’t approach me again. She just sat there sobbing. My father came back from his grumbling and didn’t seem to notice what went on. He took action, like he always did. He pulled my mother up from the ground by her arm and dragged me from the tree by my fair hair. I fought back and he kneed me in the face. I remembered hearing the car door slam and then I passed out.
I came back to the present with a jump. For a second I didn’t know where I was. I realized soon that I was in the place we sought refuge in on that night, the place I called home. The place where they always left me when they had better places to be. Better places that didn’t include me. I didn’t know when they would be back. I never did. I was just stuck here with nothing. Just myself, the old door, the hole in the wall, the shattered and broken lamp. My only friends in this demented carousel that never ceased.