She stood in front of a mirror

Clean and sober thinking about how she feels taller than her own reflection

Then she took an injection

She started as

A PTA mom perfect in her Johnson County way

Carrying around a cleanse smoothie everywhere she goes

She spikes her smoothie but nobody knows

Walking around in her workout clothes in the AM

Ripped panty hose in the PM

But her short skirt covers those holes

Talkin’ about bank rolls

And relationship goals

While her kids sit at home with a nanny asking where’s mommy

Stumbling home through a portal 

called a broken trim, paint chipped doorway the next morning 

and takes her kids to the park so she can sneak a smoke

A pack a day gonna make her broke

He was 5 years old on the playground yelling “watch mommy watch”

She looks up at the boy who spoke

She hardly recognizes him anymore

5 years old she doesn’t remember his middle name anymore

5 years later

Now she’s in AA

Got a

Mental monologue going

Thinking, “okay okay pretend for a day just say you’re sober”

She takes a breath

“Hi I’m Katherine”

Exhales as she talks, almost like a sigh

Her breath reeked of the mixed drink she had earlier

A mix between vodka and desperation

Drowning her kids in deprivation

Her kids are noticing

She’s becoming menacing

Is she

Hungover or just forgetful

She’s not a role model but she pretends to be a model as she

Struts down the crosswalk like a catwalk

Delusional and delirious

Detrimental to her kids’ health

He doesn’t know his real dad’s name but

He knows how to roll a blunt because mommy can’t do that while she’s driving

She’s driving her kid insane

He’s growing up now knowing that

His friends’ houses don’t have bloodstains in every doorway and normal people don’t take codeine when they’re not in pain

And sustaining a house, maintaining a family is not typically the job of a 

10 year old boy

And raising your baby sister who might not even be your sister is not what 

most 10 year old boys do

A 10 year old boy

Stopped asking his mom which man in the house is his dad

He doesn’t sleep because

Mom is still baked

Boy is half awake with studying because

Everything is at stake

Sister cries

He lies there

Debating existential crises of 25 year old boys even though he’s only a 10 year old boy

Does he do school work

Does he get up and do the housework

Does he care for his baby sister who’s crying like she’s hurt

But he knows

She isn’t quite hurt yet

She doesn’t know yet

Her mind can’t develop memories yet

So she isn’t truly as dead as him yet

He craves an end to the madness

Boy is beat down and broken beyond brutal under eye baggage

Bandaids can’t bind this

Edging closer to the edge of life

Just before he steps off the ledge

His brain breathes

Puts down the knife

1 year old baby sister’s life

Boy grows up

17 years old watching his mother break the bathroom mirror because she doesn’t like the reflection anymore

He’s yelling “stop Katherine stop”

Refusing to call his mother mom

Angry mother yells “Anthony – Johnson! Don’t talk to your mother like that”

“What’s my middle name” he asks

Exhaling passionate breath like poisonous gas

The mother who went from PTA to AA to HEY boy hand me that bottle

Boy is 23 years old walking home from work

Walks past a play park

PTSD pokes his ears

At the sound of a child yelling

“Watch mommy watch”