When I was six months old, my teething ring was a coffee cup my Ma got from Goodwill in 1993. My teeth would scrap against any surface of it they could.
My father wasn't happy with the sound it made and took it away in a blur of orange.
My teeth are crooked.
At six years old, I started pulling on my blinds to get a new perspective
on the tiny cars that were slowly slugging by on the grey street against the grey sidewalk.
Grey upon grey with grey and grey and grey.
My blinds broke when I was eight and my father screamed at me and pointed violently, but
I was only listening to his deep, throaty voice as he murdered his vocal cords.
Ma told him to leave, but he stays with a stale promise and a guarantee that he
doesn't have to pay for child support.
And my heart thuds in time with my Ma's sobs as she wishes my father would stop
having sex with women who don't have her umbrella-shaped birthmark on their thigh and her deep crows feet that digs into her skin so much, I can see myself.
And everyday, when she calls out "dinner" and she sets out a third place-mat
that my father has never filled, and her eyes fall to the ground-
and I can hear the thud-
it makes me feel grey.